A GREAT UNDERTAKING.

Otago Witness, Issue 1325, 21 April 1877, Page 4

A GREAT UNDERTAKING.

Speaking of tha California Company's dividend of $1,080,000, the Territorial Enterprise remarks :—: — " During the month its shipments have bees over $1,600,000, so there is no doubt about the dividend. We wonder if one in a thousand who reads the brief announcement every month on a certain day, that a certain mine has paid a dividend of $1,080,000, has the slightest idea of what is necessary to be done to make such an announcement possible 1 Every one who ever owed a note to a bank knows that 30 days is a very brief period of time. r To cause a mine to produce $50,000 in a single day is a tremendous feat ; to continue this product daily through weeks and months, almost without variation, is a marvel. It takes forethought, endurance, judgment, and nice calculation, such as very few men possess in this world. The ore from which this mighty yield is extracted lies hid away almost a third of a mile below the earth's surface. It lies where consuming heat and baffling waters join their forces to try to drive away the invading miner. While the ore is being hoisted, every month 1,250,000 feet of lumber has to be lowered and put in position, to keep safe the weakening caused by the mighty excavations. While one level is being worked, another has to be explored, for a drain of 500 tons of ore per day would soon level a mountain down. Then the Comstock i 3 an uneasy fissure. In a single week, sometimes, the swell of the ground shivers into splinters fourteen inch square timber. Shafts and drifts and inclines and tracks have to be watched incessantly, for a mine, like a glacier, seems ever to be working. This I is all below ground. Above the surface I is a world of machinery, always to be j kept in order — steam engines, air engines, \ cables, cages, air pipes, pumps, and all

the multiplied devices intended to. expedite the work and lessen the dangers of mining. Five hundred men have to be lowered into and hoisted from the depths daily. Three hundred cords of wood have to be provided daily for fuel. And there must be no delays, no serious acci-; dents. The needed repairs must be anticipated and provided for ; the accidents must be anticipated and guarded" against ; the explorations must be carried on months in advance ; the supplies must never fail. A vast space of forest land, 30 miles away, has to be denuded of its timber yearly to fill the insatiate maw of this one mine. It requires 15,000,000 feet of timber and 100,000 cords of wood annually to supply the mine and to furnish fuel to hoist and i reduce the ores. How many can appreciate the ability necessary to carry on this work without any mistakes ? '