MINING AT THAMES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 84, 10 April 1933, Page 5

MINING AT THAMES.

TREATMENT OF LOW-GRADE ORES. (From Our Own Correspondent.) THAMES, Sunday. After months of preparations in the creation of large buildings and the installation of heavy crushing machinery, the Kuranui Golden Hills Company" will commence operations in earnest this week. Erected on a site 1 close to where Messrs. Hunt and Cobley I discovered the rich Shotover patch of ' gold, which returned those two prospectors about £80,000 each, and gave Thames its world-wide fame as a goldfield, the new treatment plant has been completed, and the result of the new project will be awaited with considerable interest by the people of the town and district. It is proposed to take the whole of the Kuranui Hill and treat it in a wholesale manner, starting well up the hill and feeding the different tube mills by gravitation, each mill grinding it finer until the ore finds its way over a series of canvas tables and finally to the amalgamation plant. Three shifts will be worked, and the plant will run the whole 24 hours. It is estimated the cost of treatment of the ore will be between three and four shillings per ton, so that it will only require a return of a few pennyweights of gold to the ton to make it a paying proposition. The present plant is capable of putting through about 250 tons a day, but should the returns be satisfactory further mills will be installed by the company. There are several other claims at Thames waiting to see the result of the Kuranui mill, and if it is a success the owners of these claims will erect plants at different parts of the field.