MINING SUMMARY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11922, 21 December 1900, Page 3

MINING SUMMARY.

■It is quite evident that New Zealand has not Deen half exploited for its mineral wealth, ■which is so far an unknown quantity. As an evidence of that fact we need only mention somo recent discoveries. The Ninety-mile Beach, on the East Coast of the provincial district of Canterbury, consists for the most part of hard shingle, carried down throughout past ages by the many streams and rivers that have their sources in the mountains. Amongst this shingle there is an admixture of fine sand, and in places the sand predominates. Here and there patches of auriferous 6and have been found, but hitherto no part of the Ninety-mile Beach "was considered payable. The modern dredge ha 3 revolutionised the methods of mining, and. ground can be profitably mined now that was considered nonpayable before. Knowing of the occurrence of gold on the Canterbury beach, a syndicate took up a. dredging claim, and had the area thoroughly prospected. Bores were put down to a depth of 25ft to 45ft, passing'all the way through loose beach gravel and sand, carrying n, small percentage of gold. After that shafts were put down as far as the water would permit—to a depth of 12ft or 14ft, —and the prospect from the wash was equal to 3gr to the load. In consequence of these encouraging results, an up-to-date dredge will be put on the'claim, and the matter put to a thorough test. If the first ' dredge proves payable, it is not easy to say how many dredges may he at work on the Ninety-mile Beach at; a future date. Another alluvial discovery' that may prove valuable has been made in the Rotorua district by an old Thames miner. Golfl v>'as fownd in a creek in sand resembling Taranaki iron sand, and an assay gave a. return equal to £60 13s per ton. There .tifj^said. to,life thousands of tons- of this sand , fti'"the'-neighbourhood, sb'tHat the find' may prove a valuable sluicing,or dredging field. . The ssineral wealth of our West Coast Sounds is another unknown quantity. From their geological structure it has long been held that tb'e. Sounds would yield great wealth sooner 01 later, but from the circumstance that they are peculiarly inaccessible and densely forest-clad, the work of\exploration 13 more than usually difficult. The Sounds represent, enormous, trenches, gouged out by glncial action through the granitic backbone of the country, and the sides ought to contain mineral lodes. In consequence cf the rough character of the country no systematic search has been made anywhere except in and around Preservation Inlet, where both quartz reefs and alluvial deposits have been worked for a few years. One of the mines there—the Morning Star quartz mine—has won gold to the value of nearly £48,000, and the chances are all in favour of equally rich lodes being discovered in the vicinity: A Dunedin gentleman who recently spent some weeks prosliectintr in the neighbourhood of Preservation Inlet has made discoveries which may result in opening up somo apparently important new dredging fields, which may rival in richness the far-famed Molyneux. How deep the deposit may be is not known; but the discovery that the floor of the sound is richly auriferous is the most important mining discovery, that lias been made for somo time. No one knows, of course, how much of the sound floor is auriferous. Contiguous sounds—Dusky and Chalky—lie within the , same formation, and no doubt these will be prospected ere long.

The pavably auriferous character of the bed of the Mataura Biver has now been amply demonstrated by a small prospecting dredge. The Central Mataura Gold Dredging Company hold five miles of the river, and with a capital of £27,000.'they ought to be able to ma,ke a good thing of their property. The splendid returns'won by the small dredge will lead to a forward move in-dredging on the Matanra.

The principal feature of dredge mining since the date of our last summarj' has been the.completion of a number of new dredges, with the forward condition of others that will get to work soon. Altogether about 20 dredges have either made a start to work the claims or are nearing completion. The splendid returns of the Grey Eiver dredge, which we publish elsewhere, have given quite an impetus to dredging on the West Coast. Two other "West Coast dredges, the Buller Junction and the Nelson Creek, have commenced operations, and the resultß are anxiously waited for. There is apparently a great future for gold dredging on the West Coast.

• There is not very much from the Auckland and Iteefton proldfields to note. The following Auckland results are to hand:—During November the Crown mines treated 2924 tons of ore for bullion valued at £6248. The Talisman Consolidated return from 928 tons of ore was bullion valued at £2119. For 24 days' running the Union Waihi treated 1396 tons for bullion valued at £1459. The Hauraki return for November was bullion valued at £601 3s 6d, from 130 tons ore and 381b ■picked stone. The Waitekauri Company's return for the four weeks ended December 8 •was valued at £5304. from 2512 tons of ore treated. .The Waitekauri Extended crushed ■783 tons for bullion valued at £1021 7s sd. . The return of the Progress mines, Reefton. for November was 15710z of gold from ..1880 tons crushed; Golden Heeee, 5630z from 828 tons crushed. Krwan's Reward obiamed 130oz amalgam from top plates only for one week's work.

SUMMARY OF RETURNS. SLT7ICTNG AND HYDRAULIC EUVATDIS CLAIMS, ,'._,. Oz. dwt. gr. Nokomai Hydraulic 591 g 23 .Arrow Falls • ..- .. .. .." .. 5S 0.0 Bakery Flat 27 4 4 Deep Stream Amalgamated .. 107 420 Undaunted, Matakanui .. .. 421 0 ~0 Undaunted, Matakanui .... 223 0 0 Champion '.'-.. 24 12 19 QUABTZ MIKES. Glenrock, Macetown 95 12 6