WAIOTAHI ASSOCIATION.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1975, 4 May 1875, Page 2

WAIOTAHI ASSOCIATION.

Notwithstanding that the .^manager expected a good, yield from'the late crushing of 32.tons of stone,,it may fairly be assumed that he, no less than others, was -pleasantly surprised at" the result of yesterday's.retprfcing.ibeing 114ozs 16dwts: of gold. I visited the mine this morning/ and went through all the workings on the; ■100 feet level. The'most striking: feature' in* connection withithe mine- is; "the 'long 5 drive put in to open lip communication; be'tweehthe,main shaft, and Wo~2; -thus! : forming a complete : connection- with the: ..upperJeveL. The . object in. cutting, this; passage, which is 233 feet in length, w:.h! to do away with'the necessity of using fe"o| hauling shafts, the, stuff, before the p?6 I ject (now completed) was taken in haEd,; havingibieen" woumii up by^CmißahsAdffai windlass throughf KOit^fshaft. An'lm-j mense amount of dead work has been! dbiie,'but the managerias; of course,; prospected the cbiintry; °as he .pro-! ceeded; A' ■ good-locking^ lode/ split in! two by a horse was-come upon a few feet; from .the^ chamber, and .the manager, cut; iiv upon it "'- for :'pr little diitance|i)y Which! ho ascertained' that the horse graduallynarrowed, and that it.doubtless becomes! extinct a t few feet'further in. . The, foot-1 wall branch is like a well-defined leade? j itself, about one foot wide. Other veins} were met with in the course of the drive.! ;^The)position-of tJSoI 2 shaft jwaW strucki with great accuracy, and hoppers navej been constructed; so iU&t xthe quartz will? be passed from the upper workings down; .the. shaft, and from the, shoots .into»the; trucks, wHence it will be carried alo^gi the drive and up the "main, or engine' shaft. To proceed' to the legitimate; workingpa'B one Imay rlterm; it,?we passl from, this drive into the chamber, andi then into r the "drive from- out ofiwhich'the= 3 feet leader was obtainedvi I^ speak in the] past tense advisedly, for it should be known: that,the lode haa not by any .means, main-' tainedits character i-i-atlea'st, f its size; Its; variation is considerable, and the fissure in which the leader exists is most eccentric; at one time being almost vertical; at another, clipping at an angle of 45; and again, it will be almost horizontal. Good gold however was obtained in the reef up to a point where it was severed by a clay slide, and beyond this a barren looking reef, cut it clean across. A winze has been put down a trifling distance beyond this, and tho lode showed signs of improvement underneath. A good patch of the reef has also been blocked out over- < head. Work has been discontinued in this quarter, owing to the scarcity of j powder, but, as soon as practicable, the manager will continue to drive on the leader, which has now decreased very ! much in size, but has a splendid sandstone footwall; so that- it is apprehended by following up the lode on its course the i other seam of the reef may be found to resume" connection. The only operations at present being carried on are upon the footwall leader and the droppers therefrom. When first opened out upon at right angles with the main drive from which we have just emerged, the leader was well defined, though small; but it has since proved to be totally unreliable, and occasionally drops off into a clay seam —in which of course there is nothing profitable—and forming again, carries capital gold. I taw some gold in the face on the seccmd stope, but tlis leader in the drive has become lost in i clay seam, which branches off to the It ' Instead of following this seam up inj

the hope of the Teader'forming again, iiir Smith, continued, to * drive arid • !stope: on the stringers, from ■which- the .last crushing of 32 tons was obtained and which turned out so handsomely. They are very small however, and he is obliged to crush a lot ,of mullock with the; stone. At a few feet from the face an excavation was made with the view of cutting, the footwall leader, and fortunately a few-.feet of driving brought the men lipon" it. The labor of \ following itup was .thus saved. -Jts appearance so far is somewhat better, an-V the hanging wall * is 1 a fine solid bod,/; of sandstone, but the footwall is composed i of that shelly-iformation which ii looked; upon as: assure indication; of poverty in; the reefs. From the general'aspect of; the country, however., there'is every; reason to assume that this foptwall will give place to sandstone. On fhe whole, it will appear that there is limch difficulty met with in the working of a mine where there is such an amount of faking to be done; but, so far, good; returns have occasionally been .obtained,; and it is to be hoped that there will in! the course of time be discovered something a little more substantial. --: