THE DEEPEST MINE IN AUSTRALIA.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 454, 15 March 1890, Page 2

THE DEEPEST MINE IN AUSTRALIA.

Mr Geo. Lansell, the enterprising mine owner of Sandhurst, has written to the Mining Department offering to lend his “180” mine for the purpose of allowing boring operations to be carried on from the bottom of the shaft, which is 2800 odd feet deep, or a little over half a mile. He offers to put in a chamber and supply all the compressed air that, may be required, but he limits the time to three months during which the experiment shall be carried on. This time is much too limited, and if Mr Lans 1: expects good to be achieved he will have to extend it. Operations at these great depths are full of interest anil importance to the gold mining industry, and to cramp within a shoit period of three mon'lis an experiment that will take at least six months is not judicious. The deep mines of Victoria have utterly exploded the dictum of Sir Robert Murchison, viz., that gold would not be obtained in quartz in payable quantities below the surface at any great depth. That theory Ins been upset beyond recovery, but another problem has yet to be solved, viz., will it pay to follow the auriferous lodes to greater depths than those' already reached ? The answer, of course, depends entirely on the yields obtainable. The celebrated Comstock mine, whose argentiferous riches so glutted the market that the value of the silver was reduced, has not paid below 3000 ft. Of course locality counts for a great deal, and the two kinds of piodnct for much more. But there is the fact. The richest silver mine in the world does not pay below 3000 ft. Mr Lnnsell’s mine is only 400 ft short of the 3000 ft. Will it pay down there ? That is a question the whole Colony is interested in knowing. At the bottom of Lansoll’s 180 shaft boring could be carried on at any angle. The Magdala mine (Moonlight), at Stawell, is in some particulars even more interesting than that of Mr Lnnsell’s. The shaft was sunk 2410 ft, and a diamond drill bore was put down 520 ft further. Thus, in one sense, ihe shaft of the Magdala has probed vertically to a depth of nearly 3000 ft. But the Magdala or Moonlight Company had diamond drill bores put upward and downward diagonally in other parts of the mine. It was by means of a diamond drill bore inclined upward that a valuable make of stone was discovered, thus proving that as an aid to exploration at great depths the diamond drill is of great value. The offer of Mr Lansell should certainly be accepted if he agrees to extend the time for exploration to some reasonable period within which prospecting can be carried out.