THE BENDIGO QUARTZ KING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8105, 27 March 1906, Page 7

THE BENDIGO QUARTZ KING.

AN [INTERESTING CAREER. Mr Geoige Lansell, whosw name has figured prominently in last week's cables in connection with liequests made, was a remarkable man in many respects. In the sixties lie had sonpworks up from View Point, Sandhurst, and the malodorous refuse used to float down the ohannel opposite the Post Office, Public Library, and front entrance to the Camp Reserve, now known as Rosalind Park. The City Council of Sandhurst, as Bendigo was then celled—it has since reverted to the old familiar name, so dear to the early digger—'determined to put a stop to the nuisance, and frequent prosecutions ensued, till the fines at length went as high as £SO. Nothing daunted, Lansell stuok to bis soapworks, all the profit from which went into shaft sinking on the celebrated Garden Gully line of quartz reefs. The same determination which he brought to bear in * HIS FIGHT WITH THE CITY COUNCIL was shown in getting down below the barren strata which separated the second and third opening out of the saddle reefs of Bendigo—-a formation remarkable from the fact that it is repeated at a depth of 4,000 ft as clearly as it was near the surface, Lansell visited California in the "seventies," and was so much struck with the work performed by the diamond drill that bo offered to put £I,OOO down to procure one if the Government or the mining community found the balance, with the result that h drill was soon secured, and many others were purchased afterwards. It was largely owing to Lansell's pluck, energy and enterprise that Bendigo did not become a deserted mining camp. IN THE QUARTZ BOOM of 70, 71, 72, Lansell was reputed to have made at least a quarter of a million—some put it up to half a million sterling, He was a good employer, always paid the highest current wage, and expected and got a quid pro quo in the shape of the rcost efficient labour. When he once proved the worthiness of a mine manager, battery superintendent, or even a common miner, Lansell stack to bim to the last, and when some of these men bit oat for themselves, his capital was generally placed behind them. He was a liberal subscriber to the Bendigo School of Mines, the Hospital, Benevolent Institution, Mechanics' Institute, and, indeed, all other public institutions, and in his stand-up fight with th 9 Sandhurst Glty Council he had suoh a large amount of publio sympathy that the Counoil eventually compromised with him. Lansell is sometimes oredited with introduoing THE EIGHT-HOUR DAY amongst the Bendigo miners, but he was by no means the first iu that respect. The honour belongs to Colman and Taoohi, two Germans of the Hebrew persuasion. Both went to Germany. One of the partners lose all bis gold in wheat speculations, and afterwards returned to Bendigo, where he kept a tobaooonist's shop. Lansell spared no money in equipping his various mines with all the very latest machinery. In his No. 180 mine, now down to a depth of over 4,000 ft, the miners, working in their pelts, have jets of water sprayed on them, and everything possible is done to secure the health of the men, and lessen the degree of temperature in the mine; but the working life of a man in the 180 mine or the New Ohum Railway mine does not, at the outset, exceed five or six years. Yet men brave it all, and these deep-level mines are never known to have any difficulty in securing experienced miners to get the gold from the right leg and the left leg of these saddle reefs, whose formation closely resembles that of the ordinary bushman's saddle.