IMPORTANT GOLD-MINING VENTURE. CROWN MINES, KARANGAHAKE, FLOATED.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 342, 13 February 1889, Page 5

IMPORTANT GOLD-MINING VENTURE. CROWN MINES, KARANGAHAKE, FLOATED.

Mr Thomas Melville, who recently ie>. turned from Glasgow, after ha\ ing floated the Crown Mines Company, Karangahake, has been appointed sole agent in New Zealand for the Cassel Gold Extracting Company of Glasgow, under whoso process the Crown ore has been mosb successfully treated. The property included in the sale is the Central Sunny Corner, and Welcome Mines, Karangahake, and the consideration received for the whole of the mine.3 was £39,000, of which £26,000 is payable in shares. The allotment to shareholder in the present Crown Mines will be about 18 for every twenty fully paid - up shares, besides that which they have already received in cash. The Cassel Gold Exbi acting Company guarantee to extract not less than 75 per cent, of the assay value of the gold and silver bullion in the ore, and, in respect ot this guarantee, to receive any surplus extracted over 85 per cent. They also eiecb, at their own expense, the necessary works and plant for carrying on these operations. Iwo chemists were sent out to Karangahake by the Cassel Gold Extracting 1 Company, and they arc now on the field erecting their we rks. The Crown Mines Company ha\e sent out an efficient manager recommended by Mr John Taylor and Sons, of London, and they expect to be able to prove the process specifically either one way or another by May or June. The Cassel Company at Home have treated some ex-ti-emely refractory ores with great success, and they are now opening up agencies in the leading colonies, and also in South Africa. At the last meeting of the Cassell Gold Extracting Company, held at Glasgow, the Chairman said: — "The chief object we have now in view and are endeavouring to accomplish, is the establishing of centres where the precious ores aro abundant, in New Zealand and Australia, and by-and-byo we hope also in South Africa. To these centres we are sending the best men we have. They will have their establishments with all the requisite means and appliances; and being in tho midst oi theauriterous districts, where they can personally meet and comerso with mine owneia, and give them ocular demorfctiation of what they can do, it will not be very long, we hope, until hi thebe districts we establish a solid and \aluab!e reputation. This is the only way by which wo can expect Lo make ourselves generally or successfully known. As the otes cannot come to us on account of the enormous cost of transport, we must go to them. It would have been premature to do this, however, until our officials themselves had sufficiently mastered the process, and trained those who are being sent abroad. I can assure you, gentlemen, although your patience may have been somewhat tried, that in all these things, there has no time been lost. Our process io but little moio than a year old, and the truth is that in the perfecting and introduction of a new thing like this, and the training of a stalF, much more.,- w oik and patience are required than those who aro not engaged upon it can have any conception ot. One difficulty our representatives abtoad will have patiently to deal with is the scepticism wLich exists among mincowneiv. The existence of this difficulty is not to be wondeicd at. So many piocesfes for tho tieatmentof Gies have been puffed and tried and found wantingr, that any new process , lot ib be as absolutely pcrfectas it is possible to be, can only elowly and persistently light, its way into public con-, fidence. It is therefoie indispensable that before wo can hope to make any laige and rapid advance wo should establish tho value of our process on a practical scale at a known mine, and be able to point miners and mine owners to actual results and convincing demonstration. Hence the great importance which we attach to our contract with the New Zealand Crown Mines Co., which we hope and think will go a long way to fulfil the objects wo ha\o in view. I need hardly say that we shall spare no pains in gi\ ing our work there a good start, and in carrying ib to a successful issue. By the summer of next year I hope that our successful working at the Cro An Mines — or at any rate the beginnings of ib— will be an established fact. Ther»,2if our anticipations are realised, our careful preliminary work will prove not to luvo been thrown away, but we shall have mineowners coming to us eager for business. " A statement issued by the Cassel Company shows the result of a treatment of Crown mine ore by their process, with a ' summary of results as follows :—: — , Contents of ore treated (21tong sewt. lqr slbs.)— 3ooz. 12d\vfc. 12gr. of gold and 2560z. 9dwt. 13.jr. of silver ; actually extracted and recovered -2doz. 14chvt. l]gr. of gold and 2190z. 17d\vt. llc;r. of silver; unrecovercd— 3oz. 18dwt. lgr. of gold and 36qz. 12dwt. 7gr. of silver; total average extraction— B7*2s per cent, of gold and 85-72 per cent, of silver. Besides having been appointed sole agenb for the Cassel Company, Mr Melville has been appointed sole agent for a pulveriser which is being erected at the Crown Mines, and giving good results, and he assisted Mr Peter Ferguson, of Waiorongomai, in arranging for the formation ot a company to work his special claim on the other side of the Te Aroha range from the present gold mines. This matter was only concluded the day Mr Melville left, however, ' but Mr Ferguson had then received sufficient capital to enable him to order' machinery, and ho is expected out shortly ' to commence active operations. In tho event of all these operations proving successful, Mr Molville believes that he L will have no difficulty whatever in raising ! five or six times tho money he has gob afe ' present because all that the people ab Home want is something that can be relied " upon in which to invest their money, as opposed to some unfortunate ventures in which they have previously been induced--' to take part,— Auckland: "Stay," ■ " *