WAIHI GOLD MINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 151, 29 June 1931, Page 4

WAIHI GOLD MINE.

IMPORTANT WORK COMPLETED FRESH TRANSIT ARRANGED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) WAIHI, this day. The recent cable to London giving the Waihi returns mentioned that ithe footwall gangway on No. 10 level had been holed satisfactorily. The work is of such great importance to the future of the Waihi Company's mining operations that further reference is warranted. The scheme was adopted in view of the probability that No. 2 and No. 6 shafts would in time be affected by the removal of arches from the Martha lode, and it was decided to equip the Junction main shaft as a stand-by shaft. The footwall gangway will be used as a main haulage road for ore extracted from the Martha lode between Nos. 10 and 8 levels and connects with the Junction shaft. The construction of the gangway, including some short crosscuts, involved upwards of 15C0 feet of driving, and this was carried out from both ends; one party driving on the down grade toward the Junction shaft from the Waihi Company's No. 4 shaft main crosscut, and the other on the up grade from the Junction shaft (No. 6 level), the distance being 855 feet. Wallace and party drove 323 feet and Harvey and party 532 feet. As showing the accuracy of the survey made by the company's surveyor. Mr. W. H. Johnston, and the care with which the contractors carried out their work, it may be mentioned that the two tunnels met exactly, both in level and alignment, the floor, roof and walls of the drives coinciding. The height of the gangway from floor to roof is about eight feet, and the width five feet, with a grade of nine feet for a length of 755 feet, the remaining 10( feet being level, and the clrive for this distance 10 feet wide, equipped with a double set of rails to permit of the loading and trucking out of quartz and receiving back the empty trucks. The terminal point of the gangway on the Waihi Company's side will ultimately be No. 2 shaft, and the distance from the Junction shaft to the Waihi No. 2 is 1900 feet. The contractors working westward from thd Junction area are now engaged in putting in a deviation drive in the neighbourhood of the Junction shaft for the purpose of laying down a loop line to the Martha lode. Mining operations in the Junction area show that the Dominion, State and Ilepublic reefjj are all producing pay ore. A block of milling ore on the Republic, about 130 feet iu length, 10 feet wide and rather under 180 feet in height, is now ready for drawing off.