QUEEN OF BEAUTY.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2888, 18 May 1878, Page 2

QUEEN OF BEAUTY.

The contractors since cutting through the lode have been cross-cutting towards the shaft, and are at last underneath "it, the bottom of the shaft being some 40 feet above the back of the drive. The country has been hard, but during the last day or two the water has been slowly percolating through the barrier of hard ground between the shaft and the drive, and the

water bas decreased one foot in the latter. The manager intends to commence baling. This is advisable, as from the small pressure it is likely if* the shaft was left to itself it would take some time to get. free of the water. Once the water is out, the shaft will be sunk to the depth of. the Piako No. 8 level, and operations can at once be started on the reef intersected under such favorable auspices some days ago. At present the sole source of the quartz supply is the Queen of the May section, and there operations are progressing with all speed. The footwall branch of the leader is being driven and stoped upon, and gold is seen every time it is broken down. The manager has started sinking a winze some 60 feet ahead of the last one put down, to connect the Queen of the May level with the Beauty No. 6 level, and as the distance between the two ia only 40ft it will soon be finished, and a new block opened. - There are some months' work in this block yet. At the battery, as might be supposed, the staff is shaping well. Wilson and party were to finish retorting late this afternoon, and expect a splendid yield. At three o'clock they had 1000 ounces of amalgam on the fire so that something between 300 ani3soozs of gold may be expected. ■'^^*