THE BROKEN HILL DISTRICT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9026, 12 April 1888, Page 6

THE BROKEN HILL DISTRICT.

A NEW ZEALANDER'S" OPINION. Mb, Edwin Hornsby, -well known in Auckland and at the Thames, who recently left for Australia, has been on a visit to the Broken Hill silyor mining district, and In a letter to a friend in Auckland, after referring to several old friends and Auckland faces he had met with in his travels, he refers to his visit to Broken Hill as follows :— "I returned to Sydney from Broken Trill recently, and truly it is a wonderful place for its size. I tell you the Proprietory Company alone employs 1000 hands, their wages-sheet foots up to £6000 fortnightly. They have at work 13 steam engines of various Opacity, three smelting furnaces, with five others nearly completed, scores of horses and bullocks; in fact, I could continue giving startling accounts of their magnitude for pages were it necessary, but from the above you can faintly grasp what an immense Institution it is. I was introduced to Mr. Potter, the manager, who kindly handed me over to the underground boss, a Mr. or rather Captain Piper, who paid me every attention, and with him I had a thorough round below. I got tired viewing the enormous rich lodes, one of which particularly took my attention. This was down the Jamieson shaft (they have three main and several smaller shafts). From a well-defined footwall they have driven through the lode 190 feet without striking the hangingwall, and how much further they have to drive is uncertain. This lode averages 120ozs of silver to the ton, with a little lead. Is not this a gigantic lode beyond conception ? They have other lodes, smaller but far richer, and of a totally different character. Their output the week I was there was 1700 and odd tons, for a yield of 305 tons of bullion, 75,000 and odd ounces of silver. Well, jld man, it is far and away the biggest thing I have seen in mining, but bear in mind, my boy, there was oniy one Caledonian, one Mount Morgan, and I'll iwear there cannot be a second Broken Hill proprietary, and although there are tr<any rich claims adjacent and extending for miles, y#t' we must not expect two Broken Hills. Mr, A. Dewar is sinking a shaft on the boundary of the Proprietory Company for the underlie, and expects getting it at 1000 feet, but other experts say 2000 feet. However, his company has good hopes of success."