MINING INTELLIGENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 216, 13 September 1870, Page 2

MINING INTELLIGENCE.

MR. H. J. L. AUGARDE'S WEEKLY REPORT* Our share market is dull and inactive this week. Cullipord Shares, £1 17 a. 6J. paid. Few transactions in these shares. The drive is being pushed forward with, vigor, and good news is expected from it next week. The machinery may be looked for daily. Perseverance Shares, £2 paid. Transactions limited ; no news of importance per Lady Barkly. The battery is at work, and another return of gold may be expected shortly. The new drive, No. 3, continues to look well, and the reef still shows a thickness of about 7 feet, but beyond this there is nothing to record. Pioneer Shares, £7 paid. Sinking is beiug continued, and the difficulties being gradually overcome. No new feature to record. Lucky Hit Shades, £10 paid. A trench has been cut across the claim, and a shaft sunk 14 feet, which struck a vein from 6to 10 inches in thickness. Before long this claim will be thoroughly tested. Masonic Shares, £11 paid. Beyond a call of £1 10s. being made this week we have nothing of importance to record.. Commercial Shares, £18 paid. Nothing doing. Mount Ophir Shares, £9 paid. A track is being cut, and a contract is given, to get out 10 tons of cement which will go through the battery of the Perseverance Company, and so test this claim. Our share market can only lay claim to inaction this week. In the absence of the Culliford Company's, as well as the Waimea South Company's machinery. This not being the week for cleaning upin the Perseverance mine, no gold i 3 coming to hand, and there is nothing to remove the stagnation which characterises our share market. The serious news brought by the English Mail must add to our inactivity, a3 the raising of discount by the Bank of England to 6 per cent, tends to contract business, and lower the price of all moniad securities, as well as of our wool and flax. Of course under the present circumstances, the possibility that existed of obtaining a short line of railroad to Fox Hill, which would have benefitted our mining operations so much, is at an end, and we are thrown back on our own resources. Although this war will make the money market tight, our mineral resources are still the same, our gold is still in the ground, and although our means may be crippled for a time, by which we hoped to obtain it, yet it should not prevent our putting our shoulders to the wheel, and by helpiug ourselves thus endeavor to develop as far as we can the mineral wealth of our country.

Under the heading of "An Infernal Crime," the iVezw York Herald of the 28th May relates the following supposed atrocious attempt to fire a vessel : — The crime charged against a man named Lange, a dealer in picture frames in this city, is one that should give him a pre-emi-nence in the criminal catalogue for diabolical intent. He shipped a box in the New Orleans steamer, and secured an insurance on it of 1650 dollars, and the box proved to have been prepared with explosive and inflammable material, and was only prevented from burning the ship by the watchfulness and activity of the captain. In the box were vessels of alcohol, gasoline, and turpentine, and fire was apparently to have been set to these by a chemical that would explode with slight friction. The friction was provided for by mice shut in a box, who, in gnawing their way out were to fire the train that might have destroyed the ship and all her company at sea. Here then, is, if the charge prove true, a man, who deliberately contrives that awful calamity, fire, on a ship at sea — contrives the possible death of twenty or thirty persons — to secure the small prize of sixteen hundred dollars insurance money. He should be tried by a jury of sea captains and sailors. For remainder of^News'lsee'^Fourth'page.

At a Court Martial lately held on. board H. M. S. Clio, in Wellington harbor 3 Sub-lieutennant M'Kenzie, of H. M.S Blanche, was dismissed the service for drunkenness. A marine named Tomlin■j son, for desertion at Duuedin, wag sentenced to two years imprisonment. We (Dtmedin Echo) natice that an American paper has made a calculation, showing what the dogs in the States cost the citizens. The total amount is something large, and would make an economic ally-minded political! stare. The destruction of sheep alone is estimated at a loss of 2,000,000 dollars, and the loss caused by those injured would make the ' sum 1,000,000 more. The estimated number of dogs is 7,000.000 ; and the cost of feeding is about £5,000,000 per 9 annum. What do our political economists " think of this ? Perhaps Mr. Fox will deliver a homily on "dogs" as well as teetotalism, we fancy the cost of the former if not equalling the cost of ij "tippling" will at any rate look ill in statistics. Auckland. — The following telegrams appeared in the Post of Tuesday : — On the 30th ult., Judge Munro and a large party of suitors and visitors to Ohinemuri, left per steamer Challenger, to open the Lands Court on the 31st ult. They returned to Shortland. Having landed chairs nnd paraphernalia for the Court;, Meri Kuru and women reshipped them, and requested ibat the steamer should leave at once. The Challenger remained over night, but Mere was determined, and - the Court could not be held, and great disappointment and dissatisfaction was felt. — The chiefs, after whom the bailiffs went for satisfaction of debt, are still at large. — The native meeting will soon take place at Tokangamutu, and is expected to • be very large. Two hundred Arawasand Tito Kowaru and party, it is said, will be there. — It is reported that King Tawhaio . has left the Ngatimaniopbto tribes to , decide if the telegraph shall go through Maori laud.— ln consrqueuce of a report 3 that the Caledonian Company had struck r the Golden Crown reef, the shares -went up from £10 to £20 in one day. To be identified by the ghost of the woman whose younger sister you have married is tolerably terrible ; to be shown by the sexton into the pew of the man whom you have swindled, is satisfactorily embarrassing; to roll a drunken man, , and then discover, by the ghastly light of the moon, that it is your father, is conducive to serious meditation ; to catch cold in the nose by saving an ugly woman from drowning, and then have her swear she is yours, is calmly disgusting ; but to —we had thought we could instance something that would make all these thiugs t appear insignificant annoyances by comparison, but that last affair rather gets us. We give it up. — San Francisco NewsLetter. The latest new enterprise in gold mining in Victoria is the diversion of the river Yarra through a hill of solid rock, whereby about two miles of the river-bed will be laid dry, and an interesting problem with regard to the supposed auriferous character of the Yarra's bed will be solved. An American paper gives the following in its weekly gossip : — Sunday being a balmy- day, the styles were brought out. The most richly dressed lady we saw is the wife of a man who has owed thia office thirteen dollars for nearly three years . He says he cannot raise the money, and we believe him. At a trial in an Alabama town, not long since, one witness, an old lady of some 80 years, was closely questioned by the opposing council relative to her eyesight. " Can you see me ? " said he. " Yes," was answered. " How well can you see me ? " persisted the lawyer. , " Well enough," responded the lady, "to see that you're neither a negro, an Indian, nor a gentleman." The answer brought down the house and silenced the counsel. An avaricious man is like a sandy desert that sucks in all th 9 rain, but yields no fruitful herbs to the inhabitants. A contemporary inquires if the young ladies of the present day are fitted /or wives ? We think it a much more imr portant inquiry whether they are fitted fohusbands.