MINING MATTERS.

Evening Post, Volume LXVII, Issue 132, 4 June 1904, Page 12

MINING MATTERS.

OTAGO. The Barcwood Goldmining Company, Olugo, uhk-h was incorporated ir December, WO'?, has ul reudy paid £2800 in dividends. Last year 2844 tons of quarts were ci united, and yielded by amalgamation 24940z of gold, valuo '£9sß3 ; 21| tons of concentrates gave a value of £391 ; making n total value of £y974, or at tho rale of £3 10s Id per ton. 'J'he cost for mining and milling was £1 14s 9d per ton, and for office expenditure Is M per lon ; making a total of £1 19s Id per ton. AUCKLAND. Tho borehole on "The People's" ground at Moauulaiari Creek, Tunnies, is down 1186tt. The quartz met with proved to bo lOin thick, and the cores have been forwarded to the Thames School of Mines to be assayed. Tho bore at tho KurunuiCaledonian mine is down 1167 ft. The manager of the Old Huuraki, Coromandel, reports No. 6 lead in the Union Beach section underhand stope avorages about one inch in thickness, which showed colours and dab' of gold, 41b of stone being secured, but nothing that could be classed as peeked stone •In the west slope the lead is somewhat pinched, and only a few colours were seen in breaking down the lead. On the hanging wall brunch the No. 7 lead is irregular in size, being for a mere seam to twp inches thick, occasionally showing a few colours of gold, but producing no picked stone. The four-inch' lead showed a few colours of gold up tho rise, since which the lead has broken up into several veins The country is also broken, and does not look quite so favourable as it did at tho start. ' At the 100 ft level the drive is through the old ground about 38ft, and into solid country. AUSTRALASIAN. During the past half-year the Madnme Berry West, Crcswick, mined 4996 fathoms of alhnial washdirt for a return of 36800z gold, of the value of £15,414. The ditectors paid Is 6d per share in dividends, und carried forward £1169 to the present half-year. Thua tho Australasian: — "Tho Qippsland coal strike having been declared off, tho men are now seeking employment ; but the colliery-owners do not uppeur to be at all inclined to luko thorn on. They point out that they have enough hands employed for present requirements, and they do not wish to have in the pit any men who may be subject to union discipline outside. Tho ijumbunna mine is now employing 120 men, as against oUO formerly engaged ; the Coal Creek about 40 men, and the Outtrim-Howitt mino uhout 100 men." During the six months ending 19th May the Duke of Wellington Goldmining Compnny, Bamga-nie, obtained 29380z from 3705 tons of stone orushod. This enabled dividends amounting to £5250 to bo paid. In addition, £1678 was paid for sinking and p'.ant on tho new shaft, whenco crnsscutting for the lode at 280 ft is to be curried on at once. No stoping has been done in the mino at the No. 3 intermediate ley^li the average thickness of the lode for '.iSuft east boing Bft, "It was an expensive experiment." was the comment passed by one of the officials of tho Crown Lyell Copper Company when asked as to tho result of sending j a purcel of ore from the company's mine to tho Mount Lycll reduction works for treatment. The consignment consisted of 89.2 tons of oro, which assayed 5 84 per cent of copper, 0.70z of silver, and' .03 per cent, gold per ton. No allowance was made for the go.d nnd silver contents by the Mount Lyoll Company, and they sent the Crown Lycll Company a cheque for £55 7s 2d as a net return from the t rent ment of the parcel of oro. Payment wns ut tUe rate of 12s 5d T>er ton. Tho Crown Lyell Company atate thnt the returning charges of the Mount Lyoll Company uro framed on such a scale that if the ore had averaged 6 per cent., or only .16 above the average of that comiigned to them, the return would have beem at tho rate of 19s 7d per' ton, ns against 12s sd. Tho price of copper allowed was at the rut« of £58 10s per ton. If tho cost of mining the ore is added to the charges imposed for haulage und smelting, it is clear thnt tho cornpuny must make a loss) on any ore of tho grade sent to the smelters. GENERAL ITEMS. Tho slimes produced in electrolytic copper-refining usually carry from 15,000 oz to 20,000o» silver and 4oz to 200o« gold per ton. The copper-content ranges from 10 to 40 per cent. ,and is made up of metallic copper, oxide, sulphide, ana sulphate. — Engineering and Mining JourntU, Now York. Scheelite from Messis. W. and G. Donaldson's quartzmine at Macrae's, Otago, is shipped to Germany, where it fetches a satisfactory price. There is a fair porcentago of scheelito running thiough the lode formation ; a largo proportion is clean enough to bo hand-picked and bugged for export. The goldmines (says the Engineering and Mining Journal of New York) are accustomed to make yearly contracts for cyanide with foreign manufacturers. Since the resumption of mining after tho Boer war, deliveries liave been mostly on orders tuken in 1899, but with the increasing activity in production new contracts may soon be expected. German makers heretofore have been the Inrgest contrnctors, nnd according to tho British Board of Trade Special Commissioner, who has investigated South African trade, the German syndicate which CQii r trols the sale of cyanide has quoted as low as 9.5 d (19c) por lb from Hamburg, delivered at Johannesburg. The German syndicate has always kept its price a fraction below tho British, but- Groat Britain will be favoured in future by tho 2.5 per cent, preferential duty which Germany must puy oil shipments to South Africa. The Buttes Snddlo quartzmine, near Sierra City, owned by Richard Phelan, is situated at an altitude of 8900 ft above seu-lovol. This makes it tho highest quartzmine in California, nnd perhaps ih America. The American Iron and Steel Association has received direct from the manufacturers tho statistics of tho production of nil kinds of pig-iron in Canada for tho calendar year 1903. They show a decreu.oo of 54,139 gross tons, *or nearly 17 per cent., as compared with 1902, but nu increase of 20,442 tons as compared with 1901. The total production in 1903 amounted to 265,418 gross tons, against 319,557 tons iv 1902. In the first i half of 1903 the production wns 132,930 tons, and in tho second half it was 132,408 tons, a falling-off of only 442 ton.s. Of tho total production in 1903, 247,905 tons were made with enko and 17,513 tons with charcoal. Nearly one-half of the total production was bn^io pig-uon— namely, 126,892 tons. Less than 1000 tons of Bessemer iron were made. Spiegalciscn nnd fcrro-mnnganese havo not been made since 1899.

Owing to tho very low prices ruling for potatoes und onions, it is stated that a number of producers have left Apollo Bay, Victoria. At present hundreds of tons of produce, potatoes, and onions arc stucked at Apollo Buy, and these will probably be left to rot iv the bags, as was the case last year, «

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