C,—7,

1887. NEW ZEALAND.

LONGWOOD AND MERIVALE GOLDFIELDS (REPORT ON, BY PROPESSOR ULRICH).

Laid on the Table by the Ron. Mr. Larnach, with the Leave of the House.

Professor Uleich to the Hon. the Minister of Mines, Wellington. Sir, — University, Dunedin, 21st January, 1887. In accordance with your request, I recently inspected the Longwood and Merivale Goldfields, and have the honour to report as follows : — The Longioood Goldfield. Under the guidance of Mr. C. Eilstone, an experienced miner engaged on the field, and in company with Mr. G. Eobertson, the Chairman, and Mr. A. Cross, the Secretary of the Longwood Prospecting Association, and several citizens of Eiverton, I examined, besides several abandoned workings, the two quartz reefs at present being worked in the Longwood, and named, after their respective owners, Port's Eeef and Eilstone's Beef. The first inspected were : — Douglas's Old Workings. —These are situated about three-quarters of a mile up the low rise westward of the Pourakino Eiver, and consist of an adit, said to bo 300ft. in length, and a bore-hole in front of the adit-mouth of unknown depth. Only a few feet of the adit were accessible for inspection, and in this distance it could be seen that the adit followed a vein of about Bin. in thickness of ferruginous quartzy-inullock, dipping at so flat an angle that it showed in both walls of the adit. According to Mr. Eilstone a sample of the vein-stone was sent to Ballarat, Victoria, for a trialcrushing, and produced at the rate of 17dwt. of gold per ton —a return which was either not considered good enough for further development of the mine, or, possibly, the want of capital for the supply of crushing-machinery led to the stoppage of the work. The bore-hole in front of the adit was evidently put down for the purpose of prospecting the ground for similar flat veins at a lower level, and, as far as known, it met with no success in this respect. Port's Beef. —The discovery of this reef is due to Mr. Douglas, whose prospecting workings I described in the official report of my first inspection of the Longwood in May, 1878. The reef has been opened by two shafts and a small adit starting from an adjoining gully. The principal shaft is about 100ft. deep, and supplied with pumps, worked by a small water-wheel situated close by ; the second —smaller—shaft, hardly 20ft. distant from the former in a northward direction, is about 37ft. in depth. Both were, unfortunately, inaccessible for inspection of the workings carried on from them, owing to the break of the axle of the water-wheel, in consequence of which accident, through the pumps coming to a standstill, the water had risen to the level of the before-mentioned adit, which communicates with the pump-shaft, and a few feet further on intersects the reef and follows it for some distance. This portion of the reef was therefore all I was able to examine, and, as the manager of the mine, Mr. Port, jun., was absent on a visit to Dunedin, and none of the workmen about, I should have had to remain unacquainted with certain important points regarding the behaviour of the reef and its prospects, disclosed in the inaccessible workings, had it not been for Mr. Eilstone, who, knowing the mine thoroughly, could supply me with this valuable information. As it shows in the adit, the reef is fairly well defined, but rather broken, the cracks being filled with ferruginous mullock. It is about lft. thick, and strikes nearly east and. west, with an underlie to the south of 35° to 40°. The country-rock consists of brownish-yellow, decomposed hornblende greenstone (diorite), and is so sofc and clayey as to be easily workable by the pick alone; and this property, as well as the colour, it has also in the other workings, though, as found in the deep shaft, its hardness gradually increases with the depth. According to Mr. Eilstone, the reef was intersected near the bottom of the small shaft, and followed by a drive to the west for about 10ft., where it gradually became thinner. By another drive to the east it has been opened for a length of 60ft., and in this its thickness gradually increases towards the end to good 2ft., and the quartz becomes more solid and richer in gold—in fact, the thickest part proved the richest. It was found, however, near the end of the drive that the reef quickly thinned out, and showed an unmistakable endlong dip in strike towards the east at an angle of about 40°, a feature which explains the absence of any outcrop in that direction. In the pump-