OUR GOLDFIELDS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 78, 4 April 1899, Page 5

OUR GOLDFIELDS.

AUSTRALIAN TIN MINING COM-

'PANY.

Mr A. McCrindle, manager of the Australian Tin Company, Tasmania, reports under date March 24:—The first Don crushing of 150 tons yielded fully one per cent. Am continuing tram to the face from which the test crushing was taken, and getting- payable stone in the cuttings. The new winding gear is fixed and workingwell. New trucks have been ordered. Resume crushing shortly. BARRIER REEFS. During the week the face of the west drift was advanced fourteen feet, making a total of 298 feet. The reef there is four feet wide. An uprise has been started on the reef about twenty, feet from the face of the east drift. This will be carried up to open up the next level above. The underground work is now being done by contract. A heavy N.E. gale on Monday destroyed a number of tents and carried a few slips on the new road. IMPERIAL. The contractors are making very fair headway with the extension of the lower level drive on the south course of the main reef. The level is now apparently through the hard belt of country. The lode in the face of the drive fully three feet wide, and a great deal of bright mineral blind and copper pyrites showing through the stone, consequently it is hoped that a change for the better will be dropped across before the drive advances much further. Average samples are taken from the lode every week, which will be assayed; also, the quartz at each breaking down is tested. The drive on the new outcrop has been continued, and the reef maintains its usual thickness, but is divided into several ribs with heads of sandstone between. WELCOME FIND. Operations have been confined to Just in Time No. 1 lode, and a series of quartz veins and cross leaders. The development works are a little northward from the winze sunk on the southern lode, and just under the point where the specimen stone was found higher up. Odd colours of gold have been seen, just enough to create astonishment at not getting much more. Judging from the present appearance, the manager considers it is reasonable to conclude that there must be a valuable deposit of ore somewhere in the block now being worked. NONPAREIL. Work has been confined to clearing out the Blanche level and laying tram lines. About 250 feet will require to be driven in order to get under the winze. WAITEKAURI .KING. An extraordinary meeting of shareholders in the Waitekauri King G.M. Co. was held this afternoon in Mr C. B. Stone's office, at which Mr Smith presided. The business was to consider the question of disposing ..of the. reserved and forfeited shares.

The Chairman said the directors wished power to offer the reserved and forfeited shares to the shareholders who had so faithfully paid their ealla in the past. There were 25,000 reserved and 99,000 forfeited shares. He moved, 'That the directors are hereby authorised to dispose of the reserved and forfeited shares after first offering them to the existing shareholders.*

This was agreed to. Mr Stone showed an ingot of gold worth £7 which had been obtained from one ton and a half of ore from the mine. He said what was wanted was a. battery, so as to treat the ore on the ground, and there was every prospect of a payable mine.