The D'Urville Island Copper Mine.

Thames Star, Volume X, Issue 3113, 8 February 1879, Page 1

The D'Urville Island Copper Mine.

! A correspondent writes.relative to the" DUrTille Island Copper^ Mine:-—The latestjhaccount!-from the mine.are. pf th« most jfarorable character., .The operation! are confined to three places*-, via., the Bed wood, Owen and Manton shafts. The 1 Owen shaft is sunk to a depth j>f 70 feet, and ia the deepest of the three. The lode,: some 40 feet down, is composed of green and' blue carbonates* With a atrong" 1 admixture of red oxides;' but at ihia depth it changes to silrer-grey ore (the richest description of copper ore in the world, and indicative of the greatest permanency). The lode is from two to fire feet thick, and its hangingwall' or casing is lined with pore copper in large hcary flakes, but at the greatest depth sunk the lode widens and is rery rich, the analysis giving nearly 60 per cent, of .copper, and l6ois of .sUrer. to the ton. A tunnel ia now being driven to intersect the. shaft about 30 to 40 feet lover down, which will be completed by the second week in February; then ore lean be raised in large' quantities. From the Owen shaft a continuous drife will] cut the Redwood lode, which ia also 1 fully two feet wide, and composed of rich carbonates. It "may then be considered that the mine is beginning to be fairly opened out.' There is erefy probability that their first "shipment of ore, which has been •shipped in the Neptune for Newcastle, will very nearly cover the whole outlay on the mine' up. to the present time. Thi^ ,would" be a success almost unparalleled in mining industry in thei colony. A sample of the silrer grey ore is on exhibition in the Atheuseum passage. Originally it was a solfd block, Weighing a quarter of a ton.—Evening Post.