MINING NEWS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 8903, 20 September 1889, Page 5

MINING NEWS.

[By Telegraph.] [from our own correspondent.] EEEPTON. Sept. 19. SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. f- Work has been stopped in the South winze, as the stone is not pay* able. The battery will start crushing a small parcel of stone of about 100 tons on Monday next. INEEBMAN. The Manager has just sent down the following report:—There is twenty inches of payable stone in the new surface level going North from the top of the winze. This level is parallel with the North drive, aod has been started into a very high hill a few feet North of the present working winze, and will no doubt cut the stone that was seen higher np the bill. There ie nothing on the new find except a few leaders, and pug coming in the face. LATEST SALES. Inkerman, 275; Keep-it dark, 245; Globe, 235 ; Scotia, 16a; Fiery Cross, 10s; Nil Desperandum, 7s; Wealth of Nations, 4s; Reward, 2s 6d; Lone Star, 2s; Specimen Hill, 2s lOd ; Just-in-Time, la 6d j Resolution, Is 6dj All Nations, Is lOd. THE CBCESUS COMPANY, NENTHORN. The legal Manager writes; —Up to date about 110 tons of quartz have been reduced, and the apparent dilatoriness in the crushing is entirely due to breakages that have occurred in the water-race. The Company has experienced considerable difficulty with this race from the first day the water was put on at the head, but with the expenditure of a good deal of, labour and trouble it has now, so lam informed by the battery Manager, been placed in good working order. With regard to the value of the reef, my correspondent on the field says;—“The Croesus mine is looking well. The reef is from five to six feet wide, and carries good gold. The plates at the battery are also looking well. There is a disposition among the working men at the mine and battery to speculate in shares.” WAIPAPA DREDGING COMPANY.

The Manager reports to the Directors the result of the extensive prospecting operations carried out by him over a part of the Company’s claim of sixty acres. A strip of ground sufficient to keep the dredge at work for at least the next two years has been thoroughly prospected, twenty-eight holes having been sunk all over it at regular intervals. A full and detailed record of the depth and prospects obtained from each hole has been forwarded, and can be seen by anyone interested at the Company’s office, Manse street. The ground prospected is divided into first, second, and third class, and as yet the dredge has only been on the secondclass ground. No. 1 gives from ten to eighty specks of gold to each two handfuls of sand all the way from top to bottom reached—-a depth of 14ft. No. 2 gives from six to forty specks from top to bottom reached, 14ft. No. 3 shows from three to thirty specks from top to bottom reached, from 16ft to 20ft deep. On this division there is a stripping of six feet of blown sand which does not apparently yield a payable prospeot when tested in small quantities. The actual wash, a few feet thick, cannot with the appliances available for prospecting be penetrated to any depth. This wash contains the richest deposit of gold, and rests oh a clay bottom which slopes seaward. [Per Press Association.] AUCKLAND, Sept. 19. As there ia now a large body of men working at the Mercnry Bay goldfields, a Company is being formed for fitting np a quartz-crushing apparatus on the ground.