EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27570, 12 December 1950, Page 6

EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

FROM THE FILES OF THE ©tago ©ail? TTtmes DUNEDIN, DECEMBER 12, 1865. At Gabriel’s Gully, the work of blasting and sluicing is carried on with great success. Mr Strong on Saturday, the 2nd inst., by the aid of 30cwt of powder and an electric battery, brought down 175,060 cubic feet of stuff, besides sending the ground 50 or 60 feet back on the Gabriel's side of the Blue Spur. The members of the North Dunedin Cricket Club met on their ground on Saturday and played their first match of the season. A considerable accession to the members of the club is expected, and arrangements are being made for a series of. matches on early dates. On Saturday a scratch match was also played by members of the Dunedin Club on the South Recreation Ground, members, the initial letters of whose names were from A to H playing those whose names commenced with the other letters of the alphabet. Those in the first series won the match, one of the best features of which was the superior bowling of Mr Flannigan. We extract the following account of the crushing of stone on the Scandinavian Company’s reef from the Wakatip Mail:— ’’ We have to record the crushing of about 40 tons of stone from this well-known prospecting claim The stone crushed was not picked at all. and was from a reef seven feet thick. The cake of gold was bought by the Union Bank at £3 17s per oz, and weighed 118 oz. The average yield for several hundred tons of similar stone, still in the company’s paddock ready for crushing, may therefore be established at 3oz per ton —a very handsome amount. There is another retorting at the end of the present month, when even a larger yield is expected.”