MINING INTELLIGENCE.

Evening Star, Volume III, Issue 811, 11 December 1865, Page 2

MINING INTELLIGENCE.

The gold market has been in a rather excited state during the past week. For some time past the Bank of Otago has been giving £3 16s 9d per ounce, and been obtaining some support. On Saturday, however, the agent of this bank and that of "the Bank of New Zealand visited the Big Beach, -when the companies held meetings, and the offer of £3 17s was accepted by the miners from the Bank of New Zealand. The ruling price has hitherto been £3 15s 3d. We do not know how long the price will remain at this figure.— Yfakatip Mail. The same journal records the crushing of about forty tons of stone from the well-known prospecting claim of the Scandinavian Company- " The stone crushed was not picked at all, and was from a reef seven feet thick. The cake of gold was bought by the Union Bank at £3 17s' per ounce, and -weighed 118 ounces. The average yield for seveial hundred tons of similar stone, still in the company's paddock ready for crushing, may therefore be established at three ounces per ton—a very handsome amount. There is to be another retorting at the end of the present month, when even a larger yield is expected. In sinking a shaft to join one of the tunnels, so as bo facilitate blasting operations by a better ventilation, a large body of very rich quartz has been struck, and is estimated by the reefers to go from 40 to 60 ounces to the ton. A considerable impetus has been given to reefing in this direction, and no shares are in the market at present. Nevertheless, any amount of similar reef country is still open to the miner and small capitalist." Tuapeka.—During the present week three applications have been made -for abandoned ground, situated in the Flat, at the head of Gabriel's Gully, and an area of 30 acres been •pegged off. One of the applications was lodged in. name of Mr E. De Carle, a Dunedin merchant, who proposes, in conjunction with another of the applicants, Mr John M'Cowel, of this place, to work the ground from the foot of the spur down to a point below the Caledonian Spur. The ground in question has been the great repository of tailings sent down from the Spur, and at the place indicated, the gully has been filled up to

a considerable depth wilh them. The intention of the applicants is to heavy machinery in- ' eluding a stamper of tl&rty heads, and have these tailings broken up and re-washed. ' In this way, they expect to be able to employ 150 men. The third application has been made by Mr Peter Robertson for a ten-acre block, immediately adjoining the lands included in the former application lower down the guilty. "We are given to understand, that in both instances the * intention is to make use of »the water sent ■ down 2 from the spur, for the purpose of re-washing the tailings, and there is good ground for believing that these tailings will pay well.