BLUE SPUR MINING NEWS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 58, 20 March 1869, Page 3

BLUE SPUR MINING NEWS.

(From our Mining Correspondent.)

Blue Spur, March 18.

The Otago Company fired their blast last week, the charge of powder consisting of two tons eight hundredweight. Considering the heavy charge of powder the execution was not so great as might have been expected, owing to some mismanagement in the construction of the chambers. The Great Extended Company fired a blast with a charge of one ton one hundredweight of powder. The blast heaved out massive blocks of cement, but owing to the hardness of the strata and its being so intermixed with, backs, there was a great deal of ground cracked. Some of these cracks extend far back. The tributers of the Blue Spur Sluicing Co. fired a blast with a charge of 13 cwt. of powder. This" was not a very successful one, although since then the ground has commenced to fall more freely. The Perseverance Co. fired a blast with 6 cwt. of powder and the effect was all that could be desired. Fife and Co. fired a small bla.3t of 12 kegs of powder ; the blast was constructed in a small spur of ground to enable them to fire a heavier charge to advantage at their next blast. The demand for water far exceeds the supply. If two thousand inches of water were coming in daily at present it would all be required, j

1500 are now selling daily, independcut of other small races, which are about 600 or 700 inches more to add to the swelling tide. I" wish to draw your attention to the fact that our commonage is fa3t disappearing. The cockatoo system has commenced on a large scale, and I have obsarved latterly about fifteen or twenty acres of land being fenced in opposite the Blue Spur on the ground known as Fenton's Hill. If the miners will tamely submit it is their own fault. I merely intimate this to show the necessity for putting a stop to it.

" Right Honest" has turned up in his personal colours. It is very gratifying to one when a person acknowledges that which he actually denied. I allude to the investment, which was unfounded : in fact, it was my intention to reply more at length, but my pen fecla inadequate to the task. His reply in your last publication is so discourteous and full of slimy abuse that I do not consider his argument worth shot and powder. I can inform " Right Honest" (Mr. Curregh) thtt he cannot with honour impute any of his slime to me as I owe no baker anything, and, further, he has solicited my custom and was refused. He may take a lesson from Gray, especially from that passage where it states if the ignorance of some bakers is bliss, it's a folly for a miner to bo wise. N.B. — 9d. per loaf weighed over the counter at Lawrence.