The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1593. THE GOLDFIELDS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 303, 23 December 1898, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1593. THE GOLDFIELDS.

Fsr tie eauss that luki assiitMes, F»r the Tsrrosg that seeds rtsistaaee, For the fater; ia tha disuses, And ths js«d thxt v* caa dt. ,

There is every reason to be satisfied with the progress that our goldfields have made during IS9S. The truly remarkableincrease in the return for Ohinemuri, which is the feature of the bullion returns of the fields, gives a good indication of what this section of our goldfields is capable of. That the Ohinemuri output of about £433.----00U for the year is but a fraction of I the annual return that the county will eventually achieve we fully bei lieve. Several factors have militated i against The output this year, large as iit i*. attaining: the proportions that it _ might otherwise have done. In the I first place, difficulty in the treatment Sof the sulphide impregnated ores j | from the lower levels of the Wood- j I stock mine was attended by that j company adding little to the returns: j but there seems every probability of j the extended experiments that have | j been conducted this year resulting in j the adoption of a suitable method of ! gold extraction, and the Woodstock j will be a considerable factor again j from This out. The same initial diffi- j culties of adopting a suitable method | of extraction have obtained in the ! new mines at Waitekauri. and the j crushing has been largely of an ex- I perimental nature. As against this, | there have been the counterbalancing j improvements in the Waihi, Crown, j and Waitekauri mines, and the remarkably good returns (more particu- j larly of laTe) from The Talisman. j The Waihi. with Its doubling of j crushing power, which came into j operation in the earlier portion of the j year. has. of course, been the big factor in improving the county's [ output. Up to the last return the j Total was over £240.000 for this year, j while a clean up at The end of De- i cember will make The mine's output ! for the year not less than a quarter of a million sterling. The immense amount of ore required to keep up this return —over 7.000 tons a month--vividly conveys a conception of the i magnitude of the ore bodies from | which the stone is taken, and this j should be even more forcibly brought j home when the fact that the reefs j only number three is taken into con- J sideration. The absurdity of suppos- I ing that These immense bodies of j stone, which vary from 6 to oS feet j of crushing ore across The face, are i confined to the Waihi Company's pro- \ perty must be apparent. The theory j Of the Waihi Company's mine man- j ager, that the Martha is a true fissure j lode and. identical with the buck : reef ; outcropping on Te Aroha mountain, j 13 miles away, is more tenable. Tt is j not to be supposed, were the theory j correct, that the reef would carry j gold for its entire length, as its value ; would be regulated by the description of the country in which it was eucased. The fact that no stone has been - crushed from the Martha reef outside That obtained on The Waihi Company's mine is proof of what we have so often contended, that where deep sinking has to be prosecuted results, even where abundant capiTal for development is forthcoming, are a matter of very considerable time. That the Waihi Grand Junction have cut the Martha reef in their property is now proved almost beyond doubt: but as'yet they have been able to do nothing with it owing to the big flow of water. That in this and other cases the English shareholders will find the money requisite to prove properties which promise so well it is only reasonable to anticipate, and Waihi district within two years should boast several mines with monthly outputs running into five figures. The position as regards the Thames has been but little changed during the twelvemonth, matters dependingvery much on the operations of the big pump. The opening of this on the 10th inst. must form an epoch in the history of the Thames, possibly

as market! as that of the opening: of the railway completing communication with the agricultural district of Waikato and with Auckland. The longdeferred question of .he value of the Thames deep levels will find its solution in the coming year, primarily through the agency of the ThairiesHauraki pump.

At Coromandel. returns hare about kept up to the average. A new factor has been introduced in the Great Barrier gold and silver mines. Development in several of these during the year, and notably the Barrier Reefs, has shown that an entirely new* district will be included in the bullion returns of next year: and should this j field come within measureable dis-. j tance of what those associated with it ! confidently anticipate then the anmial ■ yield from me Great Barrier Island ' wiU be no inconsiderable aggregate j sum. The official figures showing Auckland's gold and silver output for the year are not yet obtainable, but takI ing the gold and silver shipped to the , end of November, of a total value of i £491.309, and adding returns which ; have come to hand this month up to I yesterday to the value of £ 52. Cs4.we get ] a total Of £554.023. which, although it falls a good number of thousands of pounds short of what the complete return for the year will be. can be compared with a total of £401.737 estimated in a similar manner last year at a corresponding date. Calculated on these figures, the output foi-l-SOS from the Hauraki fields shows an increase of £142.286. The prospects of the industry, despite a somewhat depressed st.-ue of the sharernarket. were never better than at the present time. The increasing returns, which have been officially over £GO.OOO for the past two ; months, or at a rate of close on three- j quarters of a million sterling a year. ; are surely justification for the confidence which has been placed in the j value, of our auriferous areas. Al corresponding, though not so marked, j improvement on the West Coast is a ! pleasing feature of the year's pro- | gress. * j