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Thames Star, Volume XVII, Issue 5253, 18 November 1885, Page 3

(To the Editor of the EVENING Stab.) Sir,—Would you kindly inform me if it is the intention of the Smelting Co. at Thames to charge £3 per ton for treating quartz, also to deduct 10 per cent, from the assay value. Now, sir, if that charge be correct haw does it happen that the same work can be done at Karangahake for £2 per ton, considering that the cost of transit of material to the latter place is ! very nearly £1 per ton more than to Thames. For my part, I cannot see that the smelting process should cost so much at all, when it can be done at several places in Europe for less than ten shillings per ton; in'fact, quartz can be won, carted, sent to England, and there treated for a total cost of about £2 per ton. Even if it cost £3 per ton a great saving would be effected, because all minerals of a marketable value would be saved, sot for the furnace owners, but for the miners, without any 10 per cent, deduction. I hope the time is not far distant when we shall see a wholesome opposition in the shape of other furnaces, whose owners will purchase the quartz at the different paddocks, and not at present on the furnace platform.—l am, &c, Pbospectob.