A WONDERFUL MINE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9053, 31 March 1908, Page 6

A WONDERFUL MINE.

The "Sydney Morning Herald" gives some very interesting information about the Mount Morgan mine. In the twenty-two years the mine has been working it has paid £7,029,166 in dividends, has contributed enormous sums of money to the Queensland Government in dividend tax (last year the tax was £46,152), set aside £50,000 to the reserve, created a fire insurance fund of £30,000, and yearly applied a large sum (£24,699 last year) to depreciation. The capital is £1,000,000. From 1886 to 1905 the mine was almost purely a gold producer. A few tons of copper were produced yearly, but it was not until quite recently that blister copper, carrying a large percentage of gold, began to' be an element of production. Before this, it was a 'wonderfully profitable mine, but this development made it much richer, for in six months 1,972 tons of copper and 26,3770zs of gold were produced. Even at the present low-price of copper, the copper from the mine equals.or even exceeds the gold in value. "Many people fail to realise the wealth of the Mount Morgan , mine, either as a copper-gold propoI sition, or a gold proposition pure and simple, or both together. At times, a ton of the Mount Morgan copper has contained 18oz, or £72 worth of gold! This, it is true, is a record. The gold contents of the copper ore vary, and consequently the amount of gold in a ton of copper likewise varies, but for a long time past it has ranged from £4O to £SO worth of gold to the ton of copper, whilst only last month it was £52." An improvement has been determined upon, which, it , is estimated, will increase the profits of the mine by £IOO,OOO yearly. As for the future, bores have indicated the presence of reserves amounting to 9,000,000 tons, which, at the present rate of working, would last over 26 years, i and there is no particular reason to I supposed that there are no other j reserves. The mine stands in the unique position that, if the price of copper fell so low as to close every other mine in the world, the metal could still be produced at a profit at Mount Morgan. 1 i