The Tasmanian Silver Mines.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3804, 7 May 1891, Page 2

The Tasmanian Silver Mines.

Thinking that some information regarding the Tasmanian Silver Mines would be of interest to our readers and would enable them to judge of the prospects of the Zealandia Silver Mining Company, whose prospectus appears in another column, our Wellington reporter called upon Mr T. H. V. Dicken, the agent for the new Company, who for a week or so is to be interviewed at

Messrs Uarcourt & Co.'s office on Lambton Quay. Mr Dicken supplied the following particulars concerning the mines :—The field, which is about thirty hours' journey by sea from Hobart, was first discovered about three years ago, but it wa3 only nine months since that active

development was commenced. Now already, the townshipjias six Banks, and there are seventy-eight wellhorsed teams on the road between it and Trial Harbour, the nearest port. They carry stores and merchandise to the Silver field at four pounds a ton and, as back-loading, convey ore to the vessels for shipment to Sydney and Adelaide for smelting purposes,

tor which latter the waggons are paid about two pounds ten shillings a ton for cartage. The silver ore in the vicinity of the Zealandia Mine at Dundas, Zeehan, is very close to the surface, and outcrops are numer* ous. There are other Companies in immediate proximity whose trial assays on large hulk parcels of fifty to two hundred tons have proved the ore to be worth from £l2 to £25 a ton, besides possessing a valuable deposit of lead, The Success Mine, indeed, assayed a result of from 90

ounces up to 2,300 ounces of silver to the ton of material, taken from a depth of fifty feet only. A number of the companies already formed have from 5,000 to 30,000 tons of ore "on grass'' awaiting the erection of smelting furnaces on the field, whioh is being proceeded with simultanO" ously with the construction of a line of railway. The Silver Queen Mine, eight miles away, has, Mr Dicken mentions, been paying a dividend a t the rate of twelve shillings per month on scrip on which only two shillings per share is paid up. This Company has had smelted at Sydney and ! Adelaide, ore which gave a return of four hundred ounces to the ton, and

which returned a nett profit of from ' £SO to £6O per ton of material. Mr Dicken, whom we have to < thank for the foregoing information, ■ will be at Messrs Harcourt and Co.'s i office, Wellington, for a few days, and i applications for shares can be sent to ( that firm, as they are the Company's . brokers, The prospectus is in another ! column. Copies of it, with plans aud ' application forms, can alsobeobtiined at the Waibarapa Daily office, ( Masterton. i

We should meutiou that some very flue specimen of ore from the mines aro to be seen at Messrs Harcourt and Co's warehouse, and we aro also asked to point out with regard to the prospectus the exceptional protection to shareholders which will be secured by the registration of the Company as a ".No liability" one, which it is intended shall be done. The substantial amount of working capital i proposed to be placed to the credit of the Company should also be ample to develop the property without any further calls on the shareholders, whilst in the remote contingency ot such being necessary, the shares of the vendors are equally liable. Mr Dicken has been very successful in placing shares in the South, especially so in Chiistchurch. He has thus, he remarked, only about ten thousand shares left for disposa in New Zealand.