MINING ITEMS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 1001, 3 September 1872, Page 2

MINING ITEMS.

The prospectus of the Caasius and Morning Star Gold Mining Company sets forth a proposed capital of £I6OOO in £1 shares. This Company has been formed for the purpose of working the claims known as the Cassius, Koh-i-nor, Morning Star, Scandinavian, Excelsior, and Golden Gate Claims, situatod in Jones' and Guardian Flats, Totara District; which together comprise an area of about 40 acres, through the entire iength of which Very rich leads of gold have been proved to exist. Tho Company possesses 5 steam-, engines aggregating 130 horse-power, together with pumps, winding-gear, and all necessary appliances. It is proposed to purchase from the present proprietors the claims which are held under lease from the Crown for 15 years, together with the plant, for the sum of £10,320, which they have agreed to take in paid-up shares, thus leaving £5680 to be subscribed for bv the public. These shares are proposed to be issued at par, and the capital thus raised will be devoted to the purchase of the plant of the Drainaie ' company, and to affecting necessary alterations in the drainage appliances. According to the prospectus, the past workings of four of the claims, (Cassius, Morning Star, Excelsior, and Scandinavian) have given the ordinary yield of £130,000 worth of gold, and the ground in the Koh-i-nor claim is almost untouched.

An order having been made for compulsory sale of the 'Prospectors' claim. Donoghues Flat, under the action Regan, Dunlop, and Donoghue v. A.llen and Eegan, praying for a dissolution of partnership. It realised £I2OO. The sale is said by the Boss ' News' to have attracted considerable attention, and resulted in its bein» knocked down to Mr Martin, after some very spirited bidding.

A. correspondent of the ' Ar»us* says : —" Rumors are afloat that the owners of the quartz machinery at the Moonlight reefs intend to dispose of it, and that the same will shortly be removed hence to the Inangahua, Such action, if true, is much to be regretted, for the reason that there is no doubt whatever that payable reefs exist here. With the exception of Boyett Bros, and Dalfcon and Burton, and a few more, no prospecting for reefs has been carried out with system to any extent, and the capital of more than one company supposed to have been judiciously laid out ia so doing, was squandered away in salarieswages for useless labor—and such kindred expenditure. Rumors of small finds of gold still come from the "Wakainariua. The Havelock correspondent of the ' Examiner,' says a storekeeper there recently purchased over £l5O worth

in one day. A correspondent to the ' Mail' writing in reference to the Anatoi" reefs says :—■" I have followed the diggings for the last ten years, but never in the course of my travels have I seen stone nearly equal to that which is getting in the Anatori reefs. I have seen as much as a half-ouuce of gold washed out of a dish of quartz, and that without crushing the quartz, from the prospector's claim. In fact, it does not matter what part of the claim is tried, there is an exceedingly good prospect to be got. In No. 1 North, good stone has been struck in several parts of the claim. Friday Creek, where the reefs are found, is quite accessible to machinery, which can be taken by boat up tho Anatori river to within two miles to where it will be erected; those two miles can be easily made accessible to horses, and there is a plentiful supply of water to be obtained from the Sand Hill river at a small expense.

The last Dunedin escort brought down 12,7220zs of gold from the various districts. Water is plentiful, and everywhere the miners are busy, with good prospects of a continuauce. Quartz reefing is looking up, and favorable accounts are received from some of the claims. ( The Dunstan District Miners Association, to remedy the inconvenience often arising during the adjudication of cases in the Warden's Court, have applied to the Government for a map to be placed in the Court House, showing the areas being mined upon, the areas open for extended claims, areas open under the Agricultural Leasing System, also the water races and the number of heads of water granted from each source. A sensible plan, that might be adopted with benefit elsewhere. It was recently reported that a very rich silver ore had been found at the Carrick Reefs Otago. The Dunstan 'Times' now says:— '• From good authority we learu that the lode of mineral discovered at the Carrick Range is antimony. At the present time with the appliances at command, and the many difficulties to be overcome in working a lode of the descriptions we understaud it will not pay to work. The ' Pleasant Creek News' states ] that a new process of treating quart? j is said to have been perfected by & j gentleman in Stawell. The quartz is, ] in burning, reduced to the consistency j of soft clav, whereby it is rendered j much lighter and easier to crush, j

The gentleman in question promises lo obtain 15dwt of gold from Btone which usually averages only Oihvt, and he is perhaps authorised in this statement, as he extracted 7dwt of gold from quartz in Castlemaine, which when crushed by the best mills only yielded 4£dwt per ton. According to the ' Bendigo Advertiser,' there is not much reality in the Roper River movement: —" The number of Sandhurst people who are ' really S°'ug' to the Roper is increasing every day, while numbers of persons who are ' thinking about it' is very great. ' Parties' are formed easily enough, consisting of ' six young fellows,' or • ten of us,' or ' a lot of us chaps,' contributing at the rate of £25 per head each, for the purpose of chartering a vessel 'to go round.' When the time comes for ' action' in this ' going round'business, somehow or other the bottled-up enthusiasm—or the £2s—has vanished into thin air. The party does not go to the Roper after all, and the members of it are found very Boon excusing themselves for stopping in Sandhurst in various fashions. One says, plainly enough, ' Oh, hang the Roper,' Another says, ' I'd go if I was sure that one would not have to carry a pistol to shoot tfiose enormous mosquitoes. There was a meeting yesterday again, of ' gentlemen anxious to fit out,' &c. It was held in the Bath hotel, and the number of gentlemen 'anxious to fit out' —with the view of setting out—was almost as great as on the previous occasion. But nothing definite came of the meeting, and we think it is pretty certain that nothing definite will come ot it, or of any similar meetings at the present time. We understand that Mr James Ross and a small party of three or four others will start soon from Sandhurst for Port Darwin, and with this expedition we think we have to content ourselves, for the present at least. The Melbourne 'Age' states :—"The departure of a vessel from Hobson's Bay with 150 passengers for Port Darwin, looks very much like the setting-ill of a rush to the diggings which are imagined to exist somewhere within 200 miles of Palmerston. In order to establish a rush it is not at all requisite that there should be any evidence of the existence of a goldfield. The very haze of doubt with which a rumour is surrounded acts as a lure. If the precise facts were known, nobody would go ; but when it is supposed that there may be more than is revealed, the desire to penetrato the mystery is, with many, irresistible." The ' Age' givss a caution to those intending to proceed to the Northern Territory of South Australia, that there is no definite . information .respecting the existence of gold in that region.