SCHOOL OF MINE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22751, 11 December 1935, Page 13

SCHOOL OF MINE

SIXTY-FIFTH YEAR REPORT BY THE DIRECTOR Dr Andrew, director of the School of Mines, presented the following report on the work of the School of Mines for its sixty-fifth year, ended November 30: — The attendance has been as follows: — Nineteen proceeding to A.O.S.M. only; 11 proceeding to A.0.5.M., plus B.Sc; three proceeding to A.0.5.M., plus 8.E.; four proceeding to A.0.5.M., plus B.Sc, plus 8.E.; one proceeding to B.E. (mechanical), first-year classes; four attending casual classes only;—total, 42, and also 19 students for dental metallurgy only.

Included in the above are three who have already taken their B.Sc and are now finishing off their mining work. Included also are seven holders of Government mining scholarships. N Onlv one scholarship has been awarded at the December examinations of 1933 and 1934. We trust that the 1935 examinations will provide us with several newcomers from the Government schools.

During 1935 the following completed their classes for one or more diplomas of associateship:—K. A. Beatson, W. J. Bolitho, A. G. Palmer, N. Pratt, W. A. Pullar, A. M. Quennell, G. E. Thomson. During 1935 R. Bryce, who completed classes in 1933, was awarded the diploma of associateship in mining,. having in the meantime completed the necessary thesis and practical work in mines. During 1935, as a result of earlier work, the following received distinction: —J. M. Alexander, B.Sc, N. I. Haszard, B.Sc, G. A. Jupp, B.Sc, T. Learmont, B.Sc, A. M. Quennell, B.Sc. As a result of 1935 work, students have received the following:— N. Pratt, Duffus Lubecki scholarship in applied science (halved for 1936). W. R. Davis, Turnbull Thomson scholarship (surveying) for 1936. W. R. Davis, Ulrich Memorial Medal (mineralogy and petrology). W. J. Bolitho, Waters Memorial Prize (metallurgy). STUDENT ACTIVITIES.

The following students . have recently joined the Institution of Mining and metallurgy (London) as student - members:—J. M. Alexander, G. A. Jupp, G. H. Macduff. H. F. C. Nevill, W. J. Bolitho, N. Pratt, G. E. Thomson, W. R. Davis, N I. Haszard, J. H. Thomson. W. A. Pullar succeeded in winning the student prize offered by the Australasian Institute of Mining Engineers. His essay was on the King Solomon gold mine, Waikaia. STAFF CADET. An interesting item this year is the fact that the Martha Gold Mining Company (Waihi) has taken on one of our students who has just finished his course, as a staff cadet, to learn the practical side of his profession by helping the manager and assistant managers in their routine work, and by helping in the surveying, ' drawing and sampling work. This is a departure for New Zealand; till now our men have had to get their practical work in the manual jobs, which after a time become monotonous, and which, after they have been mastered, call for little brain-work in their repetition. A certain amount of manual work is a necessary part of practical training for an executive, but an excess of it leads nowhere: it is brains and not brawn that will develop the mining industry in New Zealand. The staff cadet is an ordinary feature of mines throughout the world. In Australia, all the big mines have their group of staff cadets, training on to administrative jobs. The public generally do not realise the importance of management in mining: some, mines will pay under bad management; some mines will never pay even under the best management; but with the bulk of mines, success or failure depends on management; and management includes, not only the work of the mine manager and his staff, but also the general manager and directors, and also the promoters and organisers of the mine, who arranged the original finance. FORMER STUDENTS. During 1935, the following changes of position or doings of interest occurred: The date is that of the last year at the school: — 1887. —T. Butement is doing consulting work at Kalamunda, WA. 1892, —P. Fitzgerald was in London during the year; he is now consulting engineer and director for Mount Magnet Gold Mines, Ltd., and general manager for Youanmi G.M., Ltd., both in Wl. 1896.—J. W. Mellor has resigned from the post of principal of the North Staffordshire Technical College, and is living at Stoke-on-Trent, England. 1899. —E. A. de Lautour is superintendent New Guinea Goldfields, Ltd. 1900.—G. A. Gow is now mill superintendent for Ashanti Goldfields Corporation, West Africa. 1900.—G. W. Thomson is in Fiji reporting on properties for London principals. 1901.—T. O. Bishop,, who trained through mining to his present post as secretary of the New Zealand Employers' Federation, represented New Zealand at the International Labour Conference at Geneva. 1904. —R. A. Farquharson, in charge of the. Geological and Agricultural Department in British Somaliland, has in hand a three-year boring project for developing water supplies. 1904.—A. G. Spencer is promoting and developing properties on the Far East Rand, South Africa. 1906. —A. G. Macdonald is on leave in England, from the F.M.S., where he hah been acting senior warden of the Mines Department. 1906.—A. J. Walker managed at Bell, Hooper, Cromwell, for a short time, and is now at Bendigo Rise and Shine. 1907.—F. W. Thomas is at Insu, West Africa.

1909. —C. W. Gudgeon is general manager for the Costerfield Mines, Victoria, on behalf of the Gold Exploration and Finance Company of Australia. . 1912. —A. E. Horn has returned from leave to his post _ as _ manager of Naraguta, Northern Nigeria. 1912.—A. R. Rutherford is with Alluvial Tin, Ltd., boring placers in New South Wales and Queensland. 1914. —S. G. Scoular was awarded a Jubilee Medal, in recognition of his services to the New Zealand Terrotorial Forces, in which he ranks lieutenantcolonel.

1915. —E. W. Green is on the New Zealand staff of the Australian Selection Trust, Ltd. 1919. —J. H. Williamson is now with Investigations, Ltd., and British Developments, Ltd., investigating placer and reef propositions in New Zealand. 1920. —W. H. J. Cropp was on leave in Tasmania, from Japan, where he is mill superintendent for Toys Mines, Ltd. 1920. —L. V. Ellis is now manager of Sulphide Gold (Junction Eeefs) at Lundhurst, New South Wales. 1920. —R. F. Landreth has gone to Australia. 1921. —H. G. Gordon is mine manager at Blackwater Mines, Waiuta. 1921. —E. E. A. Leach, sectional manager Transvaal Gold Mines Estates, and part lecturer Witwatersrand Technical College, is now in New Zealand on leave. 1921. —N. Malcolm, manager of the Rustenburg Platinum Mines, Transvaal, was in New Zealand on leave. 1923. —J. T. Samuel has gone to Fiji. 1924. —M. D. Calder is at Kirkland Lake, Ontario. 1924.—W. H. A. Penseler is engineer-m----charge of placer testing at Lowburn, Central Otago, on behalf of Austral Malay Tin- „. 1925. —T. C. H. Hewitt is at Kirkland Lake, Ontario. 1925. —L. J. M'Cluggage was on leave in New Zealand from Siam. 1925. —A. W. Turner is in charge at Glen lnnes. New South Wales, for Gold Mines of Australia, Ltd. 1926. —S. W. M'lntosh is at Kirkland Lake, Ontario. 1927. —I. D. Cameron is manager of the Boulder Perseverance, Fimiston, W.A. 1929.—K. F. H. Walker is underground manager for Lancefield (W.A.) Gold Mines at Beria. W.A. 1929. —G. J. Williams is in the Colonial Office service, chief geologist for the Tanganyika Territory, Africa. 1930. —A. R. Evans is engineer to the Unemployment Board at Cromwell. 1932. —D. D. Smart came to New Zealand on leave from New Guinea, and i» now in Australia.

1933.—R. Bryce has been engineer-in-charge of placer boring on the We»* Coast, New Zealand* on behalf of Alluvial Tin (Aust.), and has recently been sent to New South Wales and Queensland. 1933.—H. Service, doing post-graduate work at the Royal School of Mines, read a paper before the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy on the iron-producing district of Bilbao, North Spam. 1934.—J. M. Alexander bored placers at Murchison, New Zealand, for Burmah Malay Tin, and was transferred to Briseis, Tasmania, as a staff cadet. 1934. —G. A. Jupp is boring at Murchison, New Zealand, for Burmah Malay Tin. 1934.—G. H. Macduff is staff cadet at Mount Isa, Queensland. 1934.—J. B. Mackie has gone to Perak, F.M.S., investigating placer, and other propositions. 1934.—H. F. C. Nevill is staff cadet at Mount Isa, Queensland. 1934. —G. S. Cabot is boring placers at Beachworth, Victoria. 1935.—K. A. Beatson is at Boulder, Perseverance, W.A.

1935—W. J. Bolitho is at Blackball Mine, West Coast.

1935.—A. G. Palmer is staff cadet at Waihi, with the Martha Gold Mining Company. 1935.—N. Pratt has gone to Fiji on the geological staff of Dr Loftus Hill. ■

1935. —W. A. Pullar is on placer testing work, on the staff of Clutha River Gold Dredging Company, Central Otago. 1935. —A. M. Quennell is on the soil survey in Hawke s Bay, on the staff of the New Zealand Geological Survey. 1935.—G. E. Thomson is staff cadet in

the mill of New Guinea Goldfields, Ltd. The following have been transferred from associateship to membership in the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy (London):—l9o7, F. W. Thomas. The following have been transferred » from studentship to associateship:—l92s, T. C. H. Hewitt; 1926, P. 0. Shiel; 1927, I. D. Cameron; 1928, L. Hunter; 1929, G. J. Williams; 1931. L. ON. Thomson. DEATHS OF OLD STUDENTS. I regret very much having to report' the deaths of the following:— 1894.—Harry Boydell, A.0.5.M., B.Sc. (N.Z.), D.Sc (Massachusetts). He spent three years at Coromandel, then to New South Wales and Victoria; in .1910 he went to the Transvaal and then to West Africa, all this period on mining and metallurgical jobs. He was engaged in war work in England during the Great War,_ and these years resulted in his turning his attention to chemistry, and geology, as relating to the formation of mineral deposits. He did post graduate work at the Royal School of Mines, at Massachusets, and at Wiscqnsin, United States of America. In 1922 he was Research Associate at Massachusetts, and at the same time had a consulting practice which 'took him throughout the United States of America, Mexico, and Canada. In 1928, he changed his headquarters to Toronto, and engaged in consulting work in Canada and s the United States of , America, until his death in Nova Scotia. He was a world's authority on the formation of mineral deposits, and his 1924 work on "Colloidal Solutions in the Formation of Mineral Deposits" is classic. 1896. —James Malcolm Maclaren, D.Sc. (N.Z.). He was the first .student to hoM a Government mining scholarship. He went to Auckland for his last two years and took first class honours in geology. He went to Queensland for a year as assistant Government geologist. Then he was awarded the 1851 Exhibition science scholarship from New Zealand (it was in those days awarded every second year), and he worked in London on the geology of gold. In 1901 he, went to India as mining specialist to the Government of India. In 1908, after a year's hard library work in London, he produced his monumental work, "Gold," still a classic and still the finest work on the geology of gold. Berwick Moreing sent him out to West Australia to investigate the geology of the Western Australian reefs, the first appointment of a British mining geologist, the first recognition by a mining company of the need for economic geology (nowadays the geologist is part of the staff of every big mine). From 1908 onwards, Maclaren practised his profession of mining geologist, although as years went on he took more and more interest in the financial affairs of the many companies, of which he became director. And from 1908 onwards the only other variation in his work was the constant change in the countries which he visited professionally. When last the writer saw him, he had travelled 800,000 miles on professional work, and he must have nearly reached the million when he died at his home in Cornwall.

1900.—William Ernest Barron, A.O.S.M. When South Africa opened up after the Boer War, he was one of several graduates of that period who tried their luck there, arid in Africa he remained for his professional life. His practice was in mining work, and his chief interest was in mine surveying. A. few years ago he invented the Watts-Barron levelling staff. Till 1919 he was mine surveyor, partly in the Transvaal and partly- in Northern Nigeria. In 1919 he reached administrative rank, and after that was in charge of various, properties, Broken Hill (Northern Rhodesia), tin prooerties in British South-west Africa, Mulunfushi hydro electric (Northern Rhodesia), 'ram 1927 till his death, he was mining engineer and geologist to the. North Chartaland Exploration, Northern Rhodesia. He died at Fort Jameson. The report was received, and it was decided to forward a copy to the University Senate. r