MINING MEMORANDA.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 305, 19 November 1873, Page 3

MINING MEMORANDA.

A writer in " Town and country " says :—: — "It is better to be born lucky than rich. Mr George Lansell, Sandhurst, has had many an experience of the changes of fortune, but none so great as the last. A few months ago Garden Gully Tribute .No. 3 shares went begging, and were to be sold for non-payment of the call? Mr Lansell bought 18,000 on that condition for a mere trifle, some £425, I believe, and the result is that on Monday last he received as his share over £6,000 of the dividend declared, while the shares are worth over £30,000. Not bad, is it, for an investment. Who said the days of mining excitement were over ? Stranger still, some years ago when the Garden Gully line was dead. Mr Lansell gave away 5,000 in the Garden Gully United, and the fortunate person who took them off his Lands netted in consequence £60,000. Fact ia stranger than fiction." With respect to the auriferous wealth of the Marewhenua district, the North Otago Times says :—": — " We may safely say that the field contains upwards of 50,000 acres of good payable auriferous country ; and indeed, old Victorians who have visited it assert that finer sluicing ground they have never seen. Ie is not our intention to write anything which might induce a rash to the field, because there is not room for many more miners than are now there until a sufficient supply of water is brought iv to allow of operations being carried on on a more extended scale. But the fact remains, that with (hat supply of water, at least a thousand men could for years {to come reap good results for their labour in mining at Marewhenua, and we are covinced that the outlay of £40 000 or £50,000 in bringing in an ample supply of water would prove a handsomely reinunrrative investment." i ' The "North Otago Times" was lately shown a sample of 36 ounces of gold from the lower Little Wonder claim, a3..\j.vi3in, which is situated on the hind withdrawn from Hon. Robert Campbell's original application. The gold is of excellent quality, and we are informed, that there was very liitle ground worked for the quantity obtained, showing that the ground is highly payable with a constant supply of water. Two hundred ounces have been purchased by one firm, chiefly obtained from tailraces within the last three months. Several parties will wash up about Christmas, when good returns are looked for, judging from the appearance of the tailraces. We understand that Botting & Son have got over 200 ounces from their claim just opened, which speaks well for the future of the field. Shafts were sunk two or three times at Blacks, and proved failures, before the present company succeeded in getting remunerative returns, and proved, beyond all doubt, the oxistence of rich deep leads of gold, apparently running in under the big pladu of Mount Ida Valley. -. ' A fortnight's yield of the Queen of Beauty Mine, at thj Thames, amounted to 3850zs I9dwts. A fortnights' crashing at the i Thames Moanatai Mine yielded 2470z. | 2dwts. Nine days crushing at the Tokatea ! Mine, Coromandel, yielded MKJozs sdwts of retorted gold. The Gold Mining Districts Act, passed last session,-is now in force on the goldfield, and all proceedings in future will be conducted -according to its provisions. Thechanges made are not many, nor are they] of veiy vital importance, but in several cases they wnove troublesome ambiguities and make the act work more smoothly. Clause j

17 of the present Act is clause 8 of the old Act, improved in the wording, as it was formerly doubtful whether it was the post or the mark on on the post that had to be three inches square. The only really important change in the Act is effected by the 26th ckuse, which is as follows :— " 26. If the owner of any claim shall fail to comply with the foregoing sections, numbering 22 and 23, it Bhall be Lawful for the Inspector, or any other person, to. apply to the Warden in writing to declare such claim forfeited. The manager of Bank of New Zealand shipped from Coromandel, per Golden Crown Steamer, consigned to the Lead^ffices, Auckland, the handsome quantity of 2,4670z5. 12dwts 3grs melted gold. We understand this shipment is the total yield lodged at the bank for a period of six weeks. A correspondent of the " Herald " writes from the Bay of Islands :—": — " I understand that Mr Earle has succeeded in securing a considerable extent of the quicksilver country, and will take immediate steps to work the ground on an extensive sca'e. There has been a discovery at Orepuki of a deposit of coal, 15ft. thick, with 4ft. of shale. It has been used as fuel, and tried m retort. Oil proceeded from it which burned as freely as gas. Water and gold are reported as plentiful at Marewheuna at present. Mr. Christie, of Saddle Hill, has struck a good seam of coal on his property at a depth of four feet. He has already gone through the first seam, which is four feet thick, and is close upon the second, which is of much greater thickness. The '-New Zealand Tablet" furnishes its readers with the subjoined piece of news, which verifies the adage "we must go from home for news." The " Tablet's paragrapher .says : — A small party of miners working at Tuapeka mouth have struck a lead, from which they have taken out £60 a month's worth of gold per man, and expect to get at least £500 or £600 ea h before working it out. The gold return for the month at the Thames, is given at 8000 ounces, obtained from a little over 6000 tons of stone. The share market shows little change. At the Thames lately, there bave been 297 tons of quartz crushed for the Caledonian Company, from which the total yield obtained only amounts to 83ozs of gold. During the first week, there were 141 tons crushed, the amalgam from which was 350Z8 of gold. The return for last week was an improvement upon this, for the yield was 48ozs from 156 tons of stone. From the Morning Star claim, Thames, 27 ozs were extracted from 14 tons of stuff. The Albion gold mine, Thames, from 10 tons gave 7ozs 12dwts. The following items of mining are culled from a Thames paper , — 12£ozs of gold were taken from a trial ton of stone in the Rolling Stone claim. The Hazelbank Tribute extracted 2 ozs from 231bs. From 115 tons of stone, the Bird-in-Hand Co. crushed 77ozs. of gold. Those who have returned from the Haast to the claims they left at Okarito and other places do not pronounce the place " a duffer," but a poor diggings, and ascribe their not staying there because they do as well ufc their old claims, if not better, where they have comfortable huts to live in, whereas on a new .field a great deal of hardship has to be gone through. On mining accidents, the following suggestions appear in the "Bendigo Advertiser" :—: — Weekly week the public mind is harrowed by the sickening details of some accident — "Pall in a shaft," "Another accident; man smashed to atoms " — when, by a trilling extra expense, all this fearful sacrifice of hmnaJi life might be avoided. This can be cured by mining managers and directors of companies having the ladders fixed on the cross at, say, every 20 or 30 feet in all shafts sunk in tlie future ; and that in shafts that are already sunk and straight ladders fixed, that manhole, or stages for resting places, be fixe.l, say, at every 20 or 25 feet, or if the shaft, will not allow of it, say, at every 50 to 100 feet. An Auckland correspondent writes : — " There is more life and hope in the mining world than for some months past. It is not without reason, for new mines are reportrd as 'on gold ' every week, and there is an end of sales in them at all events. There are several at the Thames now paying their way, and whose shareholders hope to find them improving, and may do so any day. The same applies to Coromandel. The Eoyal Oak, Harbor View, Union Beach, and others are not on gold, but paying dividends, more or less, and the shareholders are very hopeful of good results." The prospecting expedition sent out by the Government to Endeavor River has discovered a rich and extensive diggings. The news has caused a rush to the district, and the Government have chartered the steamer James Paterson to convey an official staff with stores and horses there. Tenders have been accepted for about 38 miles of the Mount Ida Water Race, to the amount of £8800. A Buenos Ayres correspondent narrates particulars of the discovery in a province of the Argentine Republic of wonderful gold mines, said to be the richest in the "world. One-half of the site of the mine has been sold, , according to the narrator, for 100,000,000 dollars. The returns of the quantity and value of gold exported from New Zealand from the Ist of April, 1857, to the 30th of September, 1873, are before us, as are also the returns during the quarter ended 30th September, 1873. The total exported from the colony up to the 30th September, 1873, was 7,116,8350z., of a value of £27,620,336. Of this total, almost one half, or 3, 16t>,8860z., of a va ue of £12, 398. 980, was. contributed by Otago, the returns from other par. s of the colony being: — Auckland. 833, 4930z , of a value of £2,91 1,951 ; Wellington, 390z., of a value of £120; Malborough, 41,7720z., of a value of £161, 890 ; Nelson, 1,284,8650z., of a value of 65,091,784 ; and Westland, 1,789, 809, of a value of £7,064,611. A proposal is on the board to form a company to bring up a tail-race from the Kawarau to Doctor's fiV and the deep lead on the Bannockburn. The race would command j nearly aJI the workings in that locality. The scheme would require a considerable sum of money to carry it out successfully, but is highly spoken of by several miners who are acquainted with that part of the district.