CORRESPONDENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 1 June 1935, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE

THE WILLIAM TELL REEF.

(Now Bierworth Quartz Mine).

(To the Editor). Sir,— Being one of the staff of the. old William Tell Quartz Coy.., I was’ interested in the late argument about the best and cheapest route to the claim. The machinery consisting of ten Bcwt. stampers, boxes, berdan, turbine and aerial tramway, buckets, etc., were carted by Crowley and Co. to the sit© at Cedar Creek, bv a road up the Totara river without any difficulty per four horse waggon, and it would not cost very much to put this road in repair again as there has been no traffic on it since the collapse of the Wihiam Tell Company. How this was brought about I will now relate, being the battery engineer at the time. The company had called up all its .capital (£30,000). That not being sufficient to complete all the works, a debenture for. somewhere about £SOO was given over the assets of the company to the Bank of New Zealand.

The first week’s crushing resulted in about 100 ounces of retorted gold from about 90 tons of stone_ This stone came from the outcrop and a small winze or shaft on the outcrop. Three hundred tons more were sent down, which kept the battery going for three weeks more, and I noticed that there was very little gold showing on the plates.. I sent word up vo Crowley, the mine manager, and told him he was sending quartz from r. buck reef, he swore it was the Tell reef..

The Directors came to the battery and ordered a dean up and it resulted in 20 ounces, making a total of 120 ounces from 390 tons of -stone to the dismay of the directors, and all lianas were paid oft- Just at that time, i-fte Bank of New Zealand “went broke,” and seized tlie whole plant and sold it to a Greymouth firm, who promptly took possession and carted it off.

Twenty yeans afterwards <a Wanganui private company took up the claim and their manager (Mr H. Osniers) put in a cross-cut from the main drive and there, lo and behold, was the lost MYlli:>m Tell with the gold staring at him. Subsequently it was discovered there was only a tew inches of pug separating the buck reef from the Toll, which was the hanging wall, and, Crowley did not know it, and sent down 301) tons of barren quartz to the battery. A small battery was erected, and Mr Osmers had'obtained a few thousand pounds worth of gold for his Wanganui directors, when the war broko out in' 1914. No miner, cr explosives, could he got and the mine was once more abandoned. Some years ago the mine was again taken up by Mr Bicrworth and some Hokitika ana Boss people. Mr Bierwortli was not long in discovering that the twice-orphaned William Tell mine was very wealthy, but 1 think he must- have made a clerical error in IDs statement—that there .is 70,000,000 tons of stono there —that must be pretty near the .weight of Mt. Greenland itself! There is a bright future for the company if it is enlarged with a capital of, say, £30,000, insteau of a paltry £4,000.

A new battery could t£en he erected on the site of the old one, the race cleaned out, the aerial tramway replaced, a generator established which, with the unlimited supply of water, ooulj run the battery and an air compressor at the mine to work the rock drills. A modern rock drill will pnt in a hole 4ft Gin. in hard rock in 20 minutes, which would take two men with hammer and drill six hours.

The water race is actually part of the Government Mikonui race. A halfmile tunnel is already pierced through Mount Greenland. It was proposed to serve all the Totara district and Ross Flat, its nucleus being a short tunnel through from the Totara Saddle to the Mikonui river. Being snow fed, it is an endless supply with tremendous possibilities for the supply Oj electric power. The plans of this race can be seen at the Survey Office, Hokitika. I ran ten Bcwt stampers, seventy drops per minute, with a seven foot turbine with a fall of 41) feet, with half the water going to waste. This would have run a generator, if electricity had then been known and would have run a saw mill, and supplied drilling power to the whole mine, and also to other claims now being driven on and prospected on the other side of the river, where there are many quartz outcrops. Hoping this letter will interest your readers. I "am, etc., A. P. SHARKEY. Ross, May 31.