ENDEAVOUR INLET ANTIMONY.

SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT OF THE ORE IN THE COLONY. (Evening Post.) Some months ago a syndicate was formed m Wellington to take over the lease and plant of the Antimony Company at Endeavour Inlet, with the idea of once more working the mine, which had been shut down for a long time. The prospect was by no means an encouraging one. The English Company which opened up the mine had lost considerable sums of money m the erection of plant and furnaces, and m sinking shafts for the are, and had at length abandoned the enterprise) thoroughly dig-

heartened. Not that the ore was inferior m quality, or that there was not sufficient quantity of it. On the contrary, it was proved to be equal to any antimony m tho world, but the difficulty was how to reduce the ore into crude metal at the mine. The ore had been shipped to England after undergoing an exceedingly rough process, and then smelted when it arrived at Home. No wonder the shareholders did not receive dividends. Heavy freights, excessive charges, much handling, and too much agency and brokerage, handicapped the concern out of existence. The Wellington investors were aware of all the disabilities they had to contend against, (Continued on Fourth Page.)

[Continued from third page.] but it was not until Mr E. Seager, foundry proprietor, who is a member of the syndicate, invented and patented a furnace for separating the stone from the metal, that the prospects of the mine becoming a payable one were at all bright. The furnace answered all the expectations that had been formed concerning it, and the remainder of the smelting process was easy of accomplishment. On leaving the furnace at the mine, the crude ore, as it is designated, is passed through or under stampers, known as " jigs" — something like the stampers of a quartz mill — and so reduced into coarse powder. The powdered ore is then bagged, and brought over to Mr Seager' s foundry m this city, where the smelting process is completed under the direction of Mr J. Neil, an experienced English smelter. It should be men-, tioned that the crude ore contains only about 50 per cent of pure antimony, the remainder being made up of dross of one description or the other, but the smelting process gets rid of all foreign matter, leaving the pure metal, which is called " star" antimony, from the fact that the "pig" metal as it cools forms peculiar starlike marks or radiations on the surface. The absence of the star at once denotes that the metal is not sufficiently purified, and it has to undergo further purification by fire until the star mark becomes apparent. Hence the company derives its name, that of The Star Antimony Company. The crude ore undergoes three different smeltings m as many furnaces before it can be called star antimony,, the entire process occupying about three hours. Scrap iron is employed m a portion of the smelting operation, the proportions of the metals being, say, 421bs of antimony ore and 241bs iron. The effect of the two metals being melted m one crucible is that the baser one attracts and assimilates the dross, and antimony, bping the heavier of the two, falls to the bottom of the crucible, and a blow with a sledge-hammer when the metal is cooled readily separates the iron from the more valuable metal. Mr . Seager states that the Star Company's antimony is equal to the best Japanese metal. But although the Endeavor Inlet antimony enjoys a ready sale, the price at present is very low, being quoted m London at £32 per ton. The normal price is £45 to £50 per ton, b\»t it has been as high as £70 per ton. The proprietors of the mine are to be congratulated upon the undoubted success of their undertaking, and m their ability, owing to Mr Seager's patented crude furnace, to conduct their, smelting operations within the colony, instead of having to send the ore Home for treatment.