OUR MINING EXHIBITS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9134, 16 August 1888, Page 6

OUR MINING EXHIBITS.

PUBLIC MEETING.

A meeting of the directors and managers of mines in the Hauraki district, and of others interested in mining, was held yesterday morning at the rooms oi the Chamber of Commerce, for the purpose of considering the question of obtaining proper exhibits of minerals in the New Zealand Court at) the Melbourne Exhibition. There were present : His Worship the Mayor (Mr. Devore), Messrs. A. Porter, J. M. Lennox, H. M. Shepherd, D. O. MacDonnell, S. T. George, D. B. McDonald, Joshua Jackson, J. Newman, F. A. Whifce, Brown, and others. Mr. Porter was voted to the chair.

The Chairman explained the reason of the meeting. They first found that a cablegram appeared in the Herald from a special correspondent, stating that the New Zealand mining exhibits were a complete failure. Steps were at once taken to augment the number of exhibits, and after writing to various mining owners, Mr. Young wired to the Minister of Mines, asking if ho would allow samples of ore to be sent duty free to the Exhibibition. His reply was that ore could be sent on a guarantee being given by the exporter that he would reimport the ore or pay duty. This telegram put a damper on the intentions of many who would have been willing to send, because there was no prospect of the ore coming back. The exhibits sant to London for the Exhibition were now lying about, and were likely to be put in the Colonial Institute five years nence ; and it was thought very hard that they should not only find the ore for the Melbourne Exhibition, but alao pay duty upon it. A further telegram, however, stated that the Government were willing to send any ore free of duty. He thought, as the Government had come to their senses at last, that the mine owners should help thorn to the best of their power. It was felt that not less than five tons of quartz should be sent, and the owners of the following mines had expressed their intention of forwarding ore : —Waiorongomai, one ton ; Tui, hall a ton galena and half a tou silver ore ; Karangahake, one ton ; whilst the Wailii And Martha would also send exhibits. Although the Martha ore was very poor, it was necessary that the mining exhibits should be a fair sample of the ore that had been worked on our goldfields. He felt that most of the parties who intended to send ore would like the Government to undertake' that the stone was sent back here, or better still, that the Adelaide Smelting Works would be allowed to purchase it, and the money be remitted to the various owners. This would bo tho beet way ; if they did not get the ore again, they would get the money for it. Mr. S. T. GEORGE said his company would be willing to send one ton of stone, but not upon the terms mentioned by tho chairman. He (Mr. George) would want some guarantee that they were not going to give it away, as it would be valuable stone, worth £70 or £80 per ton. Mr. Goorge read the following telegram which he had received :—" Would your company be willing to give, say, one ton of auriferous or argentiferous ores of medium quality for exhibition at Melbourne ? Government will pay all costs of transit from the mine. Please reply.—Geo. Wilson, Inspector of Mines." He was prepared to send a ton on the plan suggested—that it should be sold, and not given away. The Commissioner might make an arrangement on behalf of the Government for the sale of the ore.

Mr. D. B. McDonald eaid he would find scwt of ore from M.irototo on the same conditions, that it be sold.

Mr. J. M. Lennox would be quite willing to send a ton of ore from the Caledonian mine. He thought a committee should be appointed, and the smaller it was the better ; and he therefore moved, " That Messrs. Young and Porter be appointed a committee to gather in all the exhibits they can from the respective mines," the stone to have as much variety as possible, so as to supply some kind of a show of our mineral resources at the Melbourne Exhibition.

The Chairman called attention to the fact that the Mayor was present. Mr. Devore had taken a great interest in this matter.

The Mayor said that so far as To Aroha was concerned, Mr. H. H. Adams was moving? in the matter, but he (Mr. Devore) thought the mine-owners would not be willing to have the ore sold by tho Government; they would want to sell it themselves ; and this, he thought, was the better course. The quartz should be crushed in the Exhibition, so that visitors could nee how we failed in saving the refractory ore, and any inventor there, who had invented a process for dealing with this ore, might be allowed to crush the quartz on the spot, for his own interests as well as for the interests of the mineowners. Mr. Adams had written to him stating that he was in communication with the M?ne Inspector, and would forward ore. He (Mr Devore) intended to go to Melbourne about the middle of the month, and would do whatever was in his jxmer to make the show of minerals a success.

Mr. McDonald suggested that the Mayor be added to the committee.

This suggestion was agreed to. Mr. George said he was doubtful whether the ore could be crushed at the Exhibition, as mentioned' by the Mayor. We treated our ore by a particular process, and unless that process was worked at the Exhibition, the result of the crushing would be almost nil.

The Mayor : Yes, they have this process. Mr. George said they had the process at the Adelaide Smelting Works, but he doubted whether they had it in Melbourne, as it meant a smelting machine. The Chairman remarked that a friend writing to him had stated that the crushing machinery at the Exhibition was in an unsatisfactory state. He thought with the Mayor that the owners should have sole control of their exhibits.

The motion was adopted, the Mayor's name having been added to the committee. Mr. Brown thought that if they sent a lot of refractory ore to Melbourne they would damn tho country. In Melbourne or Sydney no stone would be touched which bore that name, and if ten or twenty tons of free milling ore were sent it would do more good than anything else. Up to the present no method had been shown which would work the refractory ores with satisfaction, and the people of Melbourne or Sydney would therefore have nothing to do with them ; they were on the outlook for free milling ore, and in the Thames there was any quantity of that class of quartz. If a guarantee were given of say £1000—he was willing to guarantee £50— and if free milling ore of that value were bought and sent to Melbourne, it would cause greater attention in the direction of our goldfa'elds than would anything else. Mr. J. Jackson pointed out that though there were no minintr appliances at the Exhibition, the difficulty might be got over by mining owners allowing the stun to be treated in Adelaide.

Mr. Georgk would not like the meeting to separate with the belief that the Waihi yielded refractory ores. Experts in America and London had stated that the ore was free milling, but the gold was so fine that the quartz had to be treated by the water process. Mr. Lennox thought Mr. Brown's suggestion a very valuable one. The Chairman said the committee would be happy to send all the ore they could lay their hands ou. He, like Mr. Brown, would make one to give a guarantee, but he thought there would be some difficulty in securing £1000 unless the gentlemen present guaranteed It, or the Government advanced the money, which he did not think was probable. He thought the ore should be at the disposal of any man who wished to take a piece away, but it was considered too great a sacrifice for any mine to give away a ton of stuff. In his opinion, there would be no difficulty in arranging with the Goldfielde Committee that the ore should be returned to the owners. He hoped there would be 20 tons of stuff. Mr. Shepherd thought they ought to endeavour to send two or three hundredweight from such as the Cambria. On the motion of Mr. George, it was unanimosly resolved, " That the ore should be at the absolute disposal of the owners, either for sale or to be returned."

[BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Thames, Wednesday. Ifc is not known what steps will be taken towards the representation of the Thames quartz exhibitsattheMelbourne Exhibition, as a great deal depends on the action decided upon at the meeting of mining directors and others held in Auckland, but the meeting to be held here to-morrow afternoon will probably decide upon, something

definite. Information has reached here that several country mining districts are stirring in the matter, and several parcels of quartz and specimens are promised. Mr. Bay Won, mining surveyor, of the Thames, is preparing an interesting exhibit at his own expense, in the form of a map showing the position of each mining district on the Cape Colville peninsula.

[BY TELEGRAPH.—SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]

Wellington, Wednesday. I understand the draft report of the Goldfields Committee was submitted to-day and approved. It is said that the evidence of the French consul, Count Jouffray d'Abbans, was to be taken at his instance as to the desirability of sending the mineral exhibits to the Paris Exhibition afterwnrds. I learn that the Government are agreeable to placing £500 on the supplementary estimates for the purpose of defraying the necessary expenses entailed. The report of the Goldfields Committee upon the mining exhibits at the Melbourne Exhibition, it is understood, will go in the direction of impressing upon the Government the necessity of having the mining industry as largely represented as poseible. The Post gives the a Melbourne correspondent as to our mineral exhibits at the Mt-lbourne Exhibition : — " Visitors to the New Zealand mineral court simply ridicule it, its aspect being mournful and museum-like in the extreme. Two apparently large tombstones, a few yellow ciock pudding-dishes containing ore, several cases of quartz samples, a stand badly equipped with a few loose boulders of quartz, and that is the impression with which a visitor leaves the show. An extremely bad impression is created by the opening show of the mineral court of New Zealand, which has a paltry class of exhibits, and those poorly displayed. A New South Wales Exhibitor offered to lend Now Zealand a few tons of quartz to build up a column or two of mineral ore like those they and other courts have erected, showing to advantage the material from the f:old and silver producing lodes of Austraia. In front of the New Zealand court, quite apart from the rest of the mineral ex hibits, is a column showing the total gold produced, but for want of an inscription even the effect of this (now out of date) trophy is lost, as the few who notice it at all attribute it to Queensland, the adjacent court."

The French consul has made an offer to the Goldfields Committee to take personal charge of all exhibits that may be sent from New Zealand to the Paris Exhibition.