CORRESPONDENCE,

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 279, 5 June 1873, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE,

BALD HILL FJ, \T SLUDGE CHANNEL. (To the Editor.) Sltt, — Permit me through the medium of your columns, to reply to statements made by a correspondent in your issue of tho 16th ult., treating on what he calls a correct report of the meeting held at Kemp's Hotel, Bald Hill Flat, and his remarks relating thereto. Correspondent makes a calculation of what he considers to be tho cost of lailraees in Butchers Gully and Coal Creek, putt-ing them dowji at £G per chain. With respect to tailraces in Butchers Gully, T wish to make a few remarks as to the cost of coiivstruetion. The first I will doal with is that owned by Messrs Carroll, Willrins and Lynch. I will divide it into three, parts. This tailraco was started in ISO 6, and is now 1100 yards in length. It took four men 3ft weeks to bring it through the gorge — a distance of 200 yards. From this point up tho ttiilrace, for a further distance of 220 yards, there was from 5 to 7ft. of son.© of the hardest rock met with in Otago. to be blasted through to get fall, to work the ground above. Three men blasted on an average, two chains per five weeks through this rock. At this time, wages were £-l< 10s per week in this district, which would make the cost of first portion : wages for 4i men for 39 weeks, £702 ; expenses for powder, tools, &c, ai £i per week, .£156. Second portion : wages for thieo men tor 25 weeks blasting. £337 10$ ; expenses at £ L per week, £100. The cost of the remaining GSO yards averaged abniit £15 per chain, amounting to £ tGS ; au'i cost of c:trryinsr tail raco under main road £(30 ; which would make tho total cost of this railrace, £ 1820.105. The noxt is that owned by Mr. M'(l uiniss. This i^> l-i*)O yards long, and its construction was started in 18(3 i, by a party of five miners. The first portion of this ■race i* a tunnel through a gorge, and took those five men 43 weeks to drive it through to the open creek. Wages were, at that time, £5 per week, which •would make the cost of this tunnel £1065 ; wages, expenses of powder, tools, &c, at £5 per week, £215 ; the remaining 62 chains averaged £14 per chain, £863 ; making tho total cost of this tailrace £2158 — it being blasted on an average 4 feet in the solid rock throughout its entire length. There are other tailraces in the creek, which have cost considerable puma in construction, of which I am not in a position to give the particulars. I speak of Carroll and Co.'s and Mr. M'Guiniss's tail races from personal knowledge, and am in a position to prove the above facts. How a eorresrespondent arrived at the conclusion that those tailraces cost only £0 per chain, I am at a loss to understand, for I am sure it is not from his experience as a miner. It is a lamentable fact, Mr. Editor, that this correspondent has used the columns of your paper to exaggerate and puff up his own enterprises ; and I take this opportunity of stating that it is a mean and shabby position for a correspondent to occupy. The miners of this district should feel highly complimented upun having such a noble and patriotic representative of their interests in the public press, and I have no doubt they will bear a grateful remembrance of him for some time. Here we find a man who never constructed a tailrace in Otago or elsewhere, informing the public as to the cost of tailraces, especially those of Butchers and Coal Creek, of which he knows nothing. To give another :1 lustration of his ability in mining matters, I quote his own figures as given in k\f> report of the meeting Ihnt was he'd on Blad Hill Flat concerning ■fhe kludge channel. He suggested that the fall for euch channel, one vA\o in length, should be from 4} inches to 6 inches to the 12 feet. It is wel 1 known to a number of miners here, that the natural fall of this portion of Flat, at the very utmost, does not exceed 100 feet. Any person may ascertain for himself, that a fall 4;jin. to the 12ft. is 165 ft. to the mile ; and G inches to the 32 feet, is 220 feet to the mile. Allowing jihe sludge channel to have started at the lowest level at the bottom end of the Flat, and to have given it the 4^ inches of fall to the 12 feet, the lowest figures quoted by Mr. SimmondH, at the end of the mile, or upper end of sludge channel, the level? would place him, or rather the channel, 65 feet above the surface in the air ; ar.d the 6 inch levels would elevate him, or his channel 120 feet. T think this will sl.ow you and the public his inexperience and unreliability. Correspondent further on says: —"I should like fo know how these gentlemen gained their information, for J om certain it is not from their own experience, for nine < ut of tin never sunk a hole in the Flat for go ; d nor have i seen many sunk in their time." This i statement is utterly false, for a large majority of them are old and experi- ! f need miners. Messrs. Butler. Webb, Lorvenson, M'Gefctigan, Leslie, and Mi- enough have all sunk holes on the FUi ; the tyro last-named have resided on l.'k 1 Flat since. Hartley and Riley's rus'.i to the Molyneux, and know whi-y the most of the holes wore sunk, and the projects, if any, obtained therefrom. Now,. ft* those gentleman know nothing about tho auriferous depo.jjia of the Flat, I would like to know where Mr. Hitntnonrls got his in* funnation, for it is a well-known fact

that the Gorge Creek Company have ucvor sunk a hole on the Flat in thenlife time. All the information Mr. Simmonds could give on the subject was hearsay, and his informants are men biased against the farmers, and some of them would stop at nothing, if they could hunt them away ; aud his statement- in rofereuce to gold got on M'Donough's section, that would par per week, arid that the land was offered for sale, is a deliberate falsehood, for he never prospected the ground or saw a prospect washed on it. Tho man who pot a few colors to the dish informed him of it, and it got magnified in his mind to £10 pet week ; and to give another instauce inferring that payable auriferous ground could be found where over you broke the surface on the Flat, in statiug that Mr. 11. Crossan in sinking a hole got gold from the surface to a depth of 8 feet -. Mr. Oroasans says, in sinking a woll-holp, he tried some prospects, aud got the color of gold; but the fow specks he jyot wore so fino that you would require to have it in a black dish to clearly see it. A correspondent says a clique had been formed to ovortbrow tho scheme. That is on a par with the reat of his statements. Those who had opposed his scheme at the meeting know that the ground along the course of the proposed channel was not proved to contain payable gold ; that there were no minors who would reap any benefit by it but his party ; that his information wns unreliable ; that Mr. Simmontls knew nothing as to the cost or construction of a sludge channel, and the scheme evidently was started to enable thorn to prospect the ground at tho public expanse. Taking all these things into consideration, the meeting could come to no other conclusion than that arrived at, and it was opposed on public grounds. — I am, &c, ' aiiNER. Butchers Creek, May 27.