THE MACETOWN REEFS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1499, 7 August 1880, Page 9

THE MACETOWN REEFS.

(FBOM ODR OWN COKBESPONDENT ) July 29fch. The remarkably open winter we have experienced has so far been very favourable to mining operations at Macetown. The Homeward Bound Company is employing ten men in their mine, in two gangs — one gang being employed to raise atone for the mill, while another is engaged in putting in an intermediate level between the two existing ones. The Tipperary Company is alao busy with a number of men raising stone ready for crushing as soon as the danger of frosts has passed away. The stone raised by this company is quite tip to the average, and it ia likely that the satisfactory yield of last season will be eclipsed by the approaching one. The Gladstone Company, which has also continued working nil the winter, continuing the main adit with a view of intercepting their vertical reef, succeeded in doing bo the other

day. Gold rs freely vis-ible in the quartz, and driving on tha reef will be prosecuted vigor oublv, bo as to have several crushings before 4he«nd of the current year. • The Main Lode Company, Advance Peak, are also making fair headway with their tunnel 'following the re6f, but I have not heard auything reliable as to the prospects of this company lately. The All Nations Coropwoy held a wellattended meeting of shareholdera the other week. Tho peculiar difficulty this company labours under is, ife baviog been started with its capital fully paid up, thereby binding the bands of fcho directors, »nd preventing their taking any step« to open the miue properly by works which could not be ext eated to bo immediately reproductive. Tho inino h.t far has ftwen self supporting, but to continue the work upon the sytttem In'h-rto carried on would leave no margin for pn.fit. Howf y* r, I belie /c that the shanholdera have agreed upona plan of remodelling the concpany, and raising the needful by a call, so that a low- level adit may be driven to intercept the reef at a point which would do away with much of the expensive gear for lowering the quartz to the machine. Although it i« not difficult to predict a pros perous Beason for the Mscetown reefs during the comin(.' summer, no very great improvemont in tha fic-ld can be expected until the reefs are connected by a dray road, if not by tramway, with Arrowtown. This k a piece of work ot absolute neceeeicy, aud one that will be done sooner or later, and the longer it is delayed the greater the loss to the Colouv. I h?d a conversation, wi'.b Mr Fred. Evans, manager of the Phoenix Claim, Skippers, who recently arrived from Victoria with a Denny and Roberts' patent grinder and amalgamator, about- the capabilities of this invention. Mr Evans expressed himself highly pleased with the gold saving qualities of th<s machine, and predicted a new eia in reefing in t?esv Zoalaud, where quart z gold, as a rule, in extremely fine. Mr Evan-i, than whom there i« not; a more experienced quartz miner in New Zealand, estimatea that the employment of the grinder and ainal^nmator will nearly double tbe yield of the gold hitherto obtained fr-mi the mineß in Otago, and will thus render claims which have been abandoned as not payable remunerjitive, and does not hesitate to reootiiinnd theao machines to quartz-mining oompftuio3.