QUARTZ MINING IN OTAGO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1297, 7 October 1876, Page 16

QUARTZ MINING IN OTAGO.

Now that the favourable season for mining operations is fast approaching it is to be hoped that the measure of prosperity in store for the delvers in mother earth, will recompense them for all their losses occasßioned through the long inclement winter, which is happily, except in very high altitudes, now at an end. Quartz mining, as a branch of mining industry, has never made any great progress in Otago as yet. Still we believe it is not from any want of auziferous reefs or lodes themselves, but rather that we have not been looking in the right places for them. Where so much alluvial gold has been extracted, and where so many detached pieces of gold-bearing stone have been found, no miner of experience could doubt but that the matrix was somewhere in the vicinity ; not that we believe that all the gold came out of the reefs, as a considerable quantity has doubtless existed in the laminated quartz veins almost everywhere 4iitersecting the metamorphic system of rocks ; still there are rich goldbearing quartz lodes for all that, and of the most permanent character, as has been unmistakably proved by the Cromwell Company's claim at Bendigo, and in the claims of the "All Nations," "Maryborough," and "Homeward Bound" Companies at Macetown. The operations

of these latter have of course not as yet been conducted on a scale equal to that at Bendigo, but this is caused by these discoveries being only of recent date, together with the hitherto almost inaccessibility of the situations. Now that these difficulties are being got over, operations on an extensive scale we believe will soon follow. We have the opinions of experienced miners upon the subject, that in each of these four instances there can be no mistake about the lodes being true and permanent, while more mmt exist somewhere. Observations go to show that where the country in the South Island of Now Zealand has been violently disturbed, and vast tracts of this exist almost everywhere, that payable reefs do not exist, ©r rather,- that under present conditions they are not worth following. It is therefore plainly apparent that our observations in the matter of searching for gold-bearing quartz lodes must be directed in other directions, and this must be to the undisturbed or utitilted country at higher levels th^n we have been' previously investigating ; and there seems no reason to doubt but that it only requires a proper and systematic search to give an almost new life to our gold-mining industry, At Reefton, in Westland, the situation and description of the stone is exactly similar to what is found at Macetown and Bendigo, so that we have now three similar conditions under which highly auriferous quartz lodes are found, and it is only therefore reasonable to suppose that nothing more is required to perfect the chain than a careful and systematic system of prospecting. With this carried out, we think, in fact we feel assured, that tho popular belief of " old identities," that the gold-mining industry is fast fading away from us will soon be exploded. Whether these investigations should be carried on by the Government or by private enterprise, or by a system of rewards, wo will not discuss at present. For our part we do not believe in Governments patronising everything, except in the shape of assisting. Government prospecting parties never did good scarcely anywhere, the wrong Bort of men usually composing them. However, the subject of prospecting for auriferous quartz lodes is well worthy of attention, and we hope to refer to it again soon. — Dunstan Times.