GOLDMINING AT GREYMOUTH. Greymouth, August 26.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 398, 31 August 1889, Page 4

GOLDMINING AT GREYMOUTH. Greymouth, August 26.

Joseph Taylor has lately been getting considerable v gold in the dredging claim at North Beach. On Thursday he cleared away a piece of ground for fixing his cataract pump, which arrived a few days ago. His grab was working seven hours and the return was forty ozs of amalgam, nearly half of which is gold. The return was enough to pay a month's expenses. The ground has been passed over by diggers in the old dayg. It is supposed a good deal of ground like it is covered up with headings.

In the course of a few days, smelting operations with the water-jacket furnace will be started at the Ta Aroha Silver and Goldmining Company's works, the furnace being now almost ready ior work. The first cargo of 360 tons lead ore from Broken Hill arrived in Auckland a few days since, and is now being carted out to the works at Waiorongomai, a number of teams being employed to do the work. A second cargo of galena is expected to arrive from the same place before long. A new stonebreaker is being erected, and rock drills are to be introduced. The Success licensed holding, forfeited for non-working, has been pegged out afresh, and Messrs Murray and Goard have obtained very' encouraging prospects. The recent wet weather haa caused work in connection with the Fergusson syndicate's new plant to be temporarily suspended, but in the Premier portion of the Company's property gold is occasionally near, and prospects are encouraging. An serial tramway has been almost completed at the Champion gold and silver mines, Tui, To Aroha, under the superintendence of Mr R. J. Johnson, of Greymouth. The total length of the line is about 1-J miles. The rope used is made of plough-steel, total length 16,600 f t; it is two inches in circumference, a'nd weighs about 4£ tons. The rope runs upon "sheaves, a kind of pulley fixed on the top of treaties, and the trestles, twelve in number, are each, 30ft in height, and constructed of heart of kauri. At either end the rope travels round on a terminal " sheave," and there is a direct fall from the upper to the lower terminal of 1,700 feet. Gravity is the motive power, the weight of the full buckets, as they descend, drawing up the empty buckets, and the quartz is to be carried in buckets constructed by Messrs Fairweatber, of Auckland. At both the upper and lower end of the tramway are paddocks for the quartz, and at the upper end of the tramline there is an overhead oval-shaped tramway on which travels what is known as the filling skip. The tram when at work travels about five miles an hour. A communication has been received ao the Thames, from the Mines Department* Wellington, stating that the Minister of, Mines has granted an extension for six, months of the time within which mine managers and others have to pass examinations for obtaining certificates of competency. This will give them up to, the 18th February, 1890, after which data the provisions of the Mining Act, 1886, will have to be complied with. - - ' , > The heir to the Russian throne has t undergo a rather severe apprenticeship to ' the art and mystery of an autocrat. 'On his last birthday he was' made a, member of the Imperial Council, and is obliged to attend all its sittings. ' He also takes his turn ' with his fellow-members in serving upon special Ministerial committees. s The Czar Alexander 111. is said to have initiated his successor so early, into the practical business of the State because he himself felt it a grievance to be kept so long in the background by his father. The young man has also to attend courses of lectures on history and political econony. A great Russian ' scholar is said to be at present instructing ' the future Czar in the political history "of the Baltic provinces, 1 and on the necessity ' of the " Russificatipn " of their inhabitants, \n, religion, 1 language, manners, - and l qua- - torus. * • ' ' ; ' '"'