The Broken Hill Silver Mine.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume X, Issue 1926, 10 May 1888, Page 2

The Broken Hill Silver Mine.

The following particulars of tho Broken Hill are from a letter from an Auckland gentleman to a friend in that city : — Broken Hill is but a mound, noD worthy of the name of hill or mountain. It runs along like the ridge of a house for a distance of 15 or 20 miles across the plain, its highest altitude not exceeding 20Qft. t The reef is cropping out of the ground all along the hill. They are quarrying it out 15ft from the surface, breakiug it up and picking it over for smelting. With refersnee to the climate, I would not live fn it. for £5 a day. It is ankle deep in fine sand, and when there is any wind blowing it is something terrible. A person must see it to realise it. Hundreds have sore eyes. With reference to the water, it bangs all I ever saw. You can cut it with a knife. It looks just like the water that comes from a brickyard when puddling clay. And for this beautiful compound you have to pay sixpence per bucketful, or 16s per 200 gallons. . It is brougb t nine miles in drays. You cannot make it clear. It will spoil any filters ever made. You have to run it through canvas bags. It is this wretched water which has spread the typhoid foyer

through the whole camp, and~men are dying at the rate of four or five per day. Hundreds of people are coming and going. Two died going in the train to Adelaide for medical aid. The hospital has been enlarged to twice its former size, and now it is full, and plenty ara. lying about in their tents not able to move. Wages — To eoud miners, £3 per week ; laborers, 40s. Buard, 35s per week. All is not gold that glitters.