PROSPECTING THE THAMES.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2880, 9 May 1878, Page 2

PROSPECTING THE THAMES.

(To the Editor of tbe Evening Star.)

Sib, —Noticing several letters in the Evening Star giving their opinions on the future prospecting of the Thames, I thought this one might not be out of place: That the County Council should take into consideration the plan that was mooted some two years since, for putting a tunrel through from the top'of the Karaka to Linker's Gully. The chances are they would find some payable reefs in less than six months, which would make the thing self-supporting. It would also give employment to the batteries in tl c Karaka and Tararu creeks for all quartz above that level. In course of time the Kuranui Hill tunnel, without a doubt, will be up to Panga Flat, when the two tunnels could communicate with each other, and nil quartz below the first mentioned tunnel could come out the Kuranui Hill tunnel, and set to work those forty stamper batteries that have been lying idle so long about that quarter. If the County Council "can't see their way clear to do or assist this work, it could be done by calling a public meeting and frying-to. impress on the business ..people of the Thames to take it in hand. Float a company of 20,000 shares; let each business person take up what he can afford, from five shares upwards. By so doing it would come within the reach Oi 1 all, as twopence per share per month on twenty thousand shares would cover the expenses until such time-as there waspayable quartz found. If this plan was carried out, either by the County Council or business people of the Thames, it would be somewhat similar to that great piece of work now going on in Virginia City, California, viz., .the''-great Sutro tunnel. They thought it advisable to 1 come down some four miles from where the rich mines are on the great Comstock Reef Company and put up a tunnel (which, cost tens of thousands of pounds) large enough for a railway engine, to cut the reefs three thousand "feet deep, in order that v they could do away with expensive hoisting and pumping machinery, give their mines good ventilation, and that one man will be able to do as much work as two at the present time; also to be able to crush ores with a profit that would otherwise have to be left in the ground.—l am, &c. J-' Akg6vb v

Pollen street, Thames, May 9, 78.