THE NEW ZEALAND COOLGARDIE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1200, 1 March 1895, Page 31

THE NEW ZEALAND COOLGARDIE.

WAIHI

A GREAT MINE AND RICH DISTRICT. Specially Written and Compiled for New Zealand Mail. In the Upper Thames district stands the flourishing township of'Waihi, of which * the Colony has been hearing off and on for some months past. The accounts have been remarkably modest, all couched in the style of the celebrated Mr Toots, whose invariable custom it was to disparage .everything of his own. "It's of no consequence" Mr Toots was always saying in meek protest. " It's of no consequence " the newspaper men, private correspondents and travellers to the North have always been saying about "Waihi. Occasionally some sub-editor, with rather a larger sail than his brethren, ventured to head one of these meagre " of no consequence " accounts with a headline containing the encouraging legend, " "Wonderful "Waihi." But as he so seldom does it, we may presume that ' he suffers from remorse. And all the time every kind and condition of man drivels himself into a state of idiocy about Coolgardie and its enormous finds. No doubt it will all come right some day. But at present it is impossible to avoid regretting that so many of the Toots family have got settled in the northern districts, and that the newspaper press up there seems to rely on that family rather than any other "for the supply of journalists. As we said before, the township of Waihi --stands in a valley of the Upper Thames district. Picturesque it is, bub the kind of picturesquenoss one appreciates hero is not of the aesthetic order. The buildings are substantial, and new ones are going up in all directions —" a growing place " says the visitor to himself. " And no wonder," he " adds, when he sees the big stamper battery with its forest of 60 stamp heads, when his eye lights on the tram trucks loaded with ore, travels over the big furnaces apparently cut into the hill-side, wanders along the big water-race hard by, admires the water-wheel yonder, and comes to, an anchor in the last pile of buildings covering what is evidently a very large plant. No need to explain these things in detail. Those " poppet heads" out there are the outcome of the Company's shaft, which descends into the Company's mine, the wonderful Waihi. The mine is under that hilly expanse covered by two leases, embracing 400 acres, more or less. The flume supplies water power from the Ohinemuri River. The ore which comes up out of the shaft is carried half a mile to the kilns we have been looking at. Large excavations they are, lined with brick, capable of holding 100 tons of quartz. The kilns are filled with firewood and quartz, layer for layer,

fire is applied, and that is the roasting process. The ore, after dropping out of the bottom of the kilns, is carried to the stamper boxes, in which it is pounded to • the consistency of silk-dressed flour, the work being done without the aid of water, as in the earlier days of quartz crushing. From the boxes this dust escapes through a mesh of forty holes to the square inch, and is carried to the cyanide works. These are extensive and complicated, the largest in the world With one exception, at Johannesberg in South Africa* Large bins for receiving the ore dust; thirteen vats each of a capacity of 25 tons, for the cyanide treatment circular they are, fitted with the latest devices, in every way up to date —a series of boxes on inclined planes in which are deposited zinc filings, some heavy looking retorts, and there you have your plant. The ore dust we left in the bins. From the bins it is fed into the vats. Into each vat a weak solution of cyanide of potassium trickles, until the whole of the dust has felt the trickle. In a few hours the gold will all melt and mix with the cyanide just as wine mixes with water. When that is done the rich liquor is drawn carefully off, taken away and decanted into the zinc boxes, through which it is allowed to flow over the zinc filings. These precipitate the gold and hold it in another combination, while the cyanide flows away pure, to be caught, bottled,- and once more decanted into the vats to take up more liquid gold. The zinc and the gold are then passed through the retorts, and the gold comes out in ingots, lovely to look upon—and there you have your cyanide reduction process. Attached to the reduction plant is a complete assay department, where the headings at the battery are assayed daily and duly reported. The whole of the machinery and cyanide department is under the management of Mr Barry, one of the most courteous and ablest managers in the Thames District, and the manager of the mine is Mr Gilmer. The Company, which putj through a good deal of ore, has, of course, paid a good deal of money to the Cassel's Company by way of royalty on its patent right over the cyanide process. What that is may be gathered from the figures we append showing the yield of the mine from the beginning. The royalty is computed at between 7-J and 10 per cent, on the gross output of bullion.' On ,£246,239 the royalty would, therefore, be between .£IB,OOO and .£24,000, which is a large percentage on the dividends amounting to .£52,500 received by the shareholders. The Company is, we believe, anxious to know why, as the patent has collapsed in an English Court of Law, the tax should continue to be levied hero. Thereby hangs a tale which must be unfolded some other time. Now let us look at the figures of Wonderful Waihi.

The mine it-self is situated about half a mile from the battery, with which it is connected by horse tramways. There are two main lodes running in a north-east direction through the Company's property. The main or "Martha" lode is a huge body of ore of irregular breadth, varying from 20ft to 60ft at the outcrop on the Martha Hill, and running a length of 3000ft.' This lode has been proved to a depth of 330 ft from the surface where the Company are now taking out some of the best ore yet produced, and where the breadth of the reef maintains an average width of 3.oft. In addition to this immense body of stone there is the " Welcome " reef, of an average breadth of 10ft, running parallel with the " Martha," and maintaning its form and shape to the same depth. Practically the whole of the o ?e from these large lodes finds its way to the battery, and the average return, of gold is singular in its uniformity, as' will be seen by a perusal of the above returns. From the ore which is now in sight the Company have /years of profitable work in store for tliem, and it is difficult to say when such a rrjine could be worked

out should the next level prove as good as the last. The Company have every faith in the future of the mine, and the same energy and go which they showed in the past is to be shown in the future, for they have now nearly completed 30 additional head of stamps, which will when finished make the present battery 90 heads. In addition to this they contemplate erecting another 100 head and cyanide plant for same, and, for the purpose of providing power to work the latter machinery, bringing in water from a new source and from a very great distance. These works will cost no less a sum than ,£60,000, and the money is provided and available, and plans are now being made for the construction of the work. At the mine sevei*al large improvements are to be gone on with, a new shaft is to be sunk, and the whole of the ground adjacent to the present workings thoroughly prospected, and the present shaft sunk 80ft deeper, and a new level opened up. It is anticipated when these works are finished and in working order the bullion returns per month will not be under .£15,000. The money for these works was alluded to in the speech of the chairman of directors (the Hon T. Russell) at the last general meeting of the Company on the 9th of January last as " the Development Fund." It was estimated that ,£50,000 would be required, and on the motion of the directors the shareholders authorised the issue of 10,000 new shares at £l, and .£4 premium. At present there is in sight stone enough to keep 90 stamps at work for seven years, at the extreme rate of 40,000 tons a year. There are two reefs, as we have above described, in one of the leases. Of the other lease, not so much ia known—a lease called the Union lease. But leaders and outcrops, in some cases of large size, have been met with, and the Chairman talked of the probability of floating a company at an early date for exploiting that part of the property. On the whole, the Waihi Mining Company may be said to have begun the new year tolerably brilliantly.

RECORD OF THE WAIHI GOT-D COMPAN7, NEW ZEALAND. > Bullion '-.'•■• £ s. d. ,£ ■•'■iff. d. Sales—1889 ... 2,356 .0 0 „ 1890 ... 19,395 0 0 „ 1891 ... 25,216 0 0 1892 ... 44,158 ,0 0 „ 1893— „ January ... 4,717 0 0 ,, February 4,154 0 0 „ March ... 4,232 0 0 April ... 5,005 0 0 „ May ... 5,844 0 0 June ... 5,908 0 0 ,. July ... 5,330 0 0 ,, August ... 5,535 0 0 ,, September 4,768 0 0 October ... 4,633 0 0 ,, November 5,412 0 0- .■",'■'' ,, December 5,655 0 0 Hi 193 0 o " 1894— UJ. j it/U V ,, January ... 6,500 0 0 „ February 4,700 0 0 ,, March ... 5,000 0 0 „ April ... 4,500 0 0 May ... 6,200 0 n „ June ... 6,200 0 0 „ July ... 6,500 0 0 SO 600 0 o ,, August ... 6,168 0 0 ,, September 7,716 0 0 October ... 7,835 0 0 „ November 8,860 0 0 „ December 12,389 0 0* . 4.2 968" 0 o ]', 1895— "■ , ™ IWjt/UW \J ,, January ... 2,746 0 Of „ February 8,607 0 Of — 11 353 0 0 XljUUf , v .£246,239 0 0 *Five weeks. fTbirty-eight days. DIVIDEND ON i3150,000 CAPITAL. 1893— 5 p. cent, July ... 7,500 0 0 5 „ October... 7,500 0 0 5 ,, December 7,500 0 0 1894— 5 „ March ... 7,500 0 0 5 „ June ... 7,500 0 0 5 „ September 7,500 0 0 5 ,, Decombor 7,500 0 0 — 52,500 0 o £ ■ ' B. d ' Total extraction 24 6,230 0 0 Total dividends 5 2,500 0 0