LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume 37, Issue 9615, 20 December 1907, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Id order to give our employes the henefit of the Xmas holidays we will publish next week on Saturday morning iustead of Friday. Wednesday, the 25th December and Ist Jauuary (Christmas Day aud New Vear's Day) are to oe observed as close holidays by the post oilices throughout New Zealand M'-iila going forward on these days will oose at 8 p.m. the evening before. On Thursday the 26th inst (Boxinc Day), the offices are to be open from 9 a.m. to 10 a m. for telegraph business and sale of stamps only Mails despatched on that day will close at 9.30 a,Ti. SrECiAL teiegrams ou which is printed ,% Wishing you a Merry Xma and a Happy New Year " may now be sent at a uniform charge of 6d. The telegrams will be received on pictorial cards, the one side bearing the message while on the reverse is depicted views of some of the prettiest glimpses of town? and beauty spots in the Dominion. The innovation is a novel one and likely to favourably eon)mend itself to the general public. It will be as well for those intending to send these telegrams to .odge same a day or two before the 2oth to ensure their delivery in good time. We nonce in the prize-list of the Dunediu Girls' High School that Miss Ethel Smith (youugest daughter of Mr J. 11 Smith) was the successful winner of the prize in the junior music examination. The Nascby Homing Club recently sent seme birds to Culverden, an air line of 204 j miles. They did the journey home in about six hours which is considered good time for their first trip there. Mittt . Dowdle's house had a narrow escape from being destroyed hy fire fin Saturday after noon. There v. as a tire in to boiler in a back room, an.l it is supposed that the chimney got hoi aud sot the scrim on tire The flames spread round the room, and would have exiende'l to the whole house only a wooden partition cheeked their progress ong enough to enable the Fire. Brigade to arrive on the sceuo, which extinguished them in a few minutes. A couple of room? were badly damaged At thime. tii.g of the Education Board >n \\'edn.-silaj mo appointment of N'-llt" Bcaitii- as mi tress >t tlyoe school wlis enufi mud. (vice Sinclair, promoted) HE Wainida Athletic Club having ••xtfiidfd 'he date for receiving nominations for the Sheffield and WiipUta ll»ndioaps, the handicaps will not be published till the 23rd inst. . MrG Brown, student, will conduct tbe Bcrvicea at Kyeburu aud Kyeburn Diggings o.u Sunday, aud at Nascby ia the evening,

PaTEAROA MINERS' ASSOCIATION. ■» . (By Ouu Pateauoa Cokrespokdent.) The postponed meeting of the ;ibovc was held on Saturday Jast, (lie p-esident, Mr D. C. Stewart, iu the chair. T. c Sccotary, Mr A. G Crerar, was down with inlluonza, and could not attend. Present:—; Messrs 0. Cambridge, J. Cogao, sen., J. Crerar, J*. Johnston ivrjjg.mney. Stewart, Tate, Thurlow, and WilsjHL There was animated discussion on the ■ul'ji-ct. of degp leads. Various theories and belief- were f>ut forward Mr Cambridge in a lengthy and well-thought out speech,"gave "lost reasonable grounds for his belief in the existence of a deep lead along the foot #T T i|i<- mountain above the township, the dixw* Hon of the lead being, as is customary ,"*it ritrbt aimles to the present wateicou/ses. That the lead is gold bearing was, the speaker s,iid, extremely probable, as it hps been in over] in many pans, wbere the reef slopes abruptly down, to have carried good gold as far down as it could be worked. Messrs Uosran and Stewart expressed their INbelief in the existence of deep leads here, the former basing his views on an extensive Victorian and .N.Z. experience. The deep leads on the • other side," he said, ran for miles uninterruptedly ; nothing of that sort bad been proved here, and, in his opinion, the finds of gold on sloping reefs h. re were only patches.

Mr il'Atatnuey instanced a case of prospecting for a deep lead at Ida Valley Some iien sank there, he said, to a depth of 150 ft. Tuny put out a bit of a heap of wash-dirt, •ut on accouut of water or some other diffi duty in vvorkmg the ground, they -old the wash-din for a fiver, and departed. The u c ■ sers were understood to get £75 worth ot gold out of tbe stuff. Other speakers'gave their views, and the jeneral opinion seemed to be, that whether you called the known auriferous ground deep leads or simply deep ground, there was at anyratc a lot of it too deep to be worked under present conditions. This matter will "" further discussed at next meeting. The great want here, the meeting seemed ; o thiuk, was more water, with great pressure As a result of our recent agitation for the conservation of water on the mountain top, the Government instructed Mr Reed, their inspecting engineer, to report on the feasibility of establishing dams on what were represented by us to be good sites. Mr Reed came here immediately after a heavy snowstorm on the mountain. One of the members of our Association (Mr Cambridge) accompanied him on horseback up the hill, but the snowdrifts were so bad that they had to turn bock when fully two miles from the proposed sites. Mr Heed informed our delegate that he would be round this way again in December, when he would probably make further investigation. Somctiuis after his unsuccessful visit, our Association received a letter from the Miues Department, in. which it wa* stated that " the engineer's report of the estimated results from the construction of the reservoir would not warrant the expenditure necessary for its construction." Quay- How could he report on country that he hao not seen ? The absurdity of attempting to stuff. men of from 10 to 20 stone with this sort of Mellin's food was commented on by several s speakers. It was resolved that a copy of the report be asked for from the Miucs Dcpt., the matter to be further discussed at next meeting (last Saturday iu February). A vote of thanks to the chair closed the meeting.