MINING INTELLIGENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 280, 28 November 1870, Page 2

MINING INTELLIGENCE.

o MR. H. J. L. AUGARDE'S WEEKLY REPORT. Culliford Sharks, £2 10s. paid. A few shares on the market, hut no disposition to invest. The machinery is at last on the ground and partially erected, the tramway aud machine house being up. Mr. Binney his lost no time, everything i-* done that couid be done, and he is now in town to send up the requisites necessary to complete matters, some portion of which have to come from Australia, as well as to be made by' Mr. Moutray. The annual general meeting takes place on the 30th inst. tendering the halfyearly report and accounts will bj the important feature, as well as the election of four directors. Persfvkiunce Siiaues. £2 paid. Inactive. Shares hang h.aw on hand ; the Lady Barklv, brings no news of importance, B ittery is at work. The adjourned meeting of shareholders to-n ght. when the ail-abs-Thing question of "Water" comes on. PioM-i-i. Shares, £8 paid. Dormant. No foreign capital is yet offering. Thi** mine is at present inactive, local capital not beiug readily at hand, and, in all probability, nothing will be done lor somt- time. lucky Hit Shares, £10 paid. Thereappears to be a ft'elint* afloat that this scheme will be abandoned. Tlie Directors should take some decided steps one way or ihe other. Masonic Shares. .£l2 10s. paid. This small company is in a similar position. Commercial Shares, £18 paid. Shares heavy. Tlie 10 tons of stuff put through the Perseverance battery gave 3'>zs I3dwts." 9«rs., say 7dwts. 7 crs. to the ton. This is not a great re; urn. yet when we consider the advantage of the accessibility of the mine, and the ease with which waier can be obtained, the scheme looks well enough, it could ho worked hy v 15--.tamper battery, and judg-m; from the ■ ost of the battery purchased l>y the Wahne.-i --'outli Q lartz-erushing Company, a small company, siy 40 shirehol :er.s of £50 each, making £2000, could start, uid obtain profitable returns in the shape of a tuir interest for money. Mount Ophir Shakes, £9 paid Unaltered. Colmnowood Co.v. Company Sharks, £!40 pa*d. Inactive. A few shares on the market. As this Company is evidently suffa'iti"' from want of capital, it is a pity the present holders do not take steps to enlarge the company, and so be enabled to put plenty of coal into the m-.nket. Doras's Gold-minixg- Company, 10s paid The machinery i-; in hand ana will soon be finished. Ifcyond the call of £1 due on the Sth December, not!>i"g new. Waimea South Quartz Crushing Company, IDs paid. The Legal Manager has returned, lnving purchased a X) stamper battery, with shafting tbr 15 stampers of 7 cwt. each. The machinery will arrive by next steamer from Auckland. We have to record an increased depression in our share market, as we are in the second phase of mining, in which money is required to meet the calls for machinery, drives, sinking tunnels, and tram ways &c, while no returns can be expected for sometime. Doran's Battery will soon he ready ; the Waimea South Company is waiting the arrival of Batteries ; Cullif'ord's Mattery is partially erected, thus the New- "_"e;;r will give us fi.e batteries in the long talked of Wangapeka country, and it is hoped, ample employment to a large amount of labor. The adjourned meeting of the Perseverance Miuincr Company, takes place this evening, when it is presumed that some fair and equitable a - , nmgement will be proposed by which the point at issue will be settled. There is no doubt the mine could be let on tribute, and made to pay, therefore surely the present Direction, after 6 months experience can manage so as to guaran- I tee a fair interest for money in future.] The pruning-kuife must he applied when and where required, without fear or favor. The shareholders are disappointed about the expenses, but mining is made up of disappointments. It's not all gold that glitters " Yet if we do nothing to t open up our country, who is to do it for us ? . \ ■

Victoria Militant. — A writer in the Weekly News says : — Upon my life, I don't think it's worth while to go into business as a Military Nation just now. Somehow I fancy we can't do it at. the price, seeing that the price is rather high. "The Victorian Govermeut," as the papers say, " have determined to raise a body of eighty men," as a standing army ! Aud eighty mtn wouldn't fill a hollow tooth of one of these new gun-mousters we hear about. Then agniu what are we going to fight for? For the love of tbe Devil surely! And for the love of God we'd better put our standing army of oigbty nieu (with how many officers ?) to some useful work. You remember when " MrPhairson swore a feud against tbe clan McTavish," how he set olf with four and twenty men, and five and twenty pipers. How many pipers should we want for eighty men ! Iv a word, my friends, this defence bounce is bosh. But if we must have an army, why don't we begin with the Firemen ? They iv-] Jy round tbe flagstones of a night, if bhizes are in season ; and our folks are good at encouragement iv their sort of watery business. Like the fire-loving place iv Kansas, we may proudly say that we cm turn out a larger number of people to a smaller fire; and they'd leave a better dinner aud run faster, and surround the conflagration quicker, stay there longer, and go home wetter than any other place in the country. Nevertheless our standing army is getting ou. We've hired two or three more men, and the commissariat; department (that's the prog department.) has opeued au account for groceties and. shins of beef. At preseut. tbe Army buys its coal by tbe bushel ; but at a late Cabinet Council it was decided to purch se a load of wood, offered for sale by a spirited carter, so as to save expense. For remainder of News see Fourth page.

The Mont Blanc Accidknt.— Ihe ■Journal de Ganece gives an account of the terrible accident on Mont Blanc, by which, as was stated io the letter which recently rppenred in our columns, it is feared 11 lives have been lost. Three travellers — an Irishman and two Ameri•cans — with three guides and five porters, left Chamounix on Monday Morning, to arrive that day ami sleep at the GrandsMulcts. The wetither was fine, but. the next morning there was so viol. nf. a storm that the inhabitants of Chaniounix naturally supposed that the traveller; would have given up the idea of au ascent of Mont Binne, and would not have quitted the Giands-Mulets. There was, therefore, no disquiet respecting them in the valley. News came, it is true, in the evening, that from the Croix de Flegere and from Brevent they had been seen starting ior Mont Blanc iv spite of the tempest, ai d •that they had arrived upon the Diom. - dary's Hump, an hour's march distant from the summit ; that they had been seen suddenly to collect together and hold fast one to another, and then to disappear in the snow-wreaths raised hy the wind. In spite of this, however, people peisisttd in believing that they must, have sheltered themselves against the wind in some nook or crevice of the ice. The next day passed, however, and no one descended, -and on the following morning 32 young men of the valley went eff in search of the missing persons, but they were compelled by the state of the weather to retrace their steps. On the following day a new attempt was made by 12 young men ; but again the lain and the wind would not permit them to scale lhe mountain. At the hour ol writing there remained no hope that the •unfortunate people had escaped death. It is thought probable that at the moment when ti ey were seen for the last timegrouped together on the top of the Boeses -dv Dromedaire they were making a «upreme effort to withstand the tempest, that their effoit was of no avail, and that they were precipitated together upon the •Glacier dv Maige, which spreads out on the side of the Allee Blanche. Peaches. — The consumption of peaches in the United States is immense. The New York Times says that iv the season -"every man, woman, and child luxuriated at a small expense in the most delicious fruit known to humanity." But it is atmitted that the peach of the southern •counties of England is superior to the American, and that " Covent-garden •peaches are from four to eight and ten •times as large as Washington-market peaches. New York draws its supply •chiefly from Delaware, Maryland, and part of Peosylvania. Most of the fruit is sent by railroad ia through cars ; in favourable weather it arrives in much better condition by water, but weather cannot be relied on. Tbe supply which reached New York and Philadelphia last year exceeded four million baskets, a basket averaging 200 peaches; but this year there is hardly half a crop, owing lo an " eastern blight." The method of the peach trade in New York in the season is this : — A trip to Jersey City about 1 a.m. will show a shabby -look ing unwashed crowd awaiting the cars. As socn as tbey arrive, no time is lust in selling, and 100,000 baskets are gobbled up very quw-kly, in quantities varying from 50 to ■500 basket at a time, by middle-men. Now comes the turn of the first-class retailers, who often spend 3 to 5 dollars a 'basket for choice lots ; then the grocers, a hard lot to suit, but good buyers, make a lar-_e hole in a consignment ; after then: come the apple-women, pretty hard ai driving a baigain, but profitable customer! •in the main. The shippers and preserver! come in later, and generally get frui •cheap. The last customer is the worst— -the huckster. Be peaches ever so so gooe •or ever so rotten he bides his time, ane •never misses a chance of pouncing oi -seme unfortunate dealer mad with ange at being " suck," and anxious to get bad some of his money. Barely, howevei does this class of retailers get anythin; hut the very worst article, or pay mor than 75c. a basket for it. When it is con sidered that on a modrote computatioi there aie over 10,000,000 dollar ombi'iked in the Eastern peael tratie, the profit on which exceeds 35.001 dollars perannum to i he growe; s, labourers •and mechanics of theregion, nearly 250,00' ■ dollars per ar.num to the New Yot] <on n it-Hen houses, 1,4*00,000 dollars t 4he raihoad and freight companies, an<

pei fiaps iiuoilier 3,0U0,UU0 dollars to the i vendors in New York, an idea of the importance of the trade may be had. The Secret of the Prussian Supkkiority. — The Rev. Dr. Eyerson, Chief Superintendent of Education for the Province of Ontario, was charged with making an officiil visit of inspection to the schools of Continental Europe in 1866 and , 1867. In his special report to the { Canadian Government on the result of his ■ inquiries in Prussia, he h'ts the following passage: " Tlie Anstro-Prussian war has afforded a vivid illustration of the power {ot education over ignorance even in the battle-field — ot the superiority of mental discipline to mental crudeuess — of free thought and intellectual activity to intellectual enslavement and torpor. I Inst year asked a distinguished Prussian Minister of State, to what lie primarily I ascribed tie superiority of Prussia over Austria in the recent war. His Excellency I replied that in his opinion it was not in lhe 1 men physically, or in military skill or prowess, but iv tht- sound and universal education of the Prussian soldiery,|which comI bined iv each Prussian soldier the intelli'gence and di-cipline of an officer, and gave j him a. momentum equal fo many of the uneducated and feeble-minded enemy. 5 '