The Mines.

Otago Witness, Issue 1598, 8 July 1882, Page 22

The Mines.

The Prospecting Association at Naseby have completed their trialshaft to a depth of 150 feet, and as the bottom is not yet struck, have arranged to sink another 50 feet. The shaft is substantially timbered throughout, and the work is being energetically prosecuted.

The Hamilton correspondent of the Mount Ida Chronicle reports that "the Cornish Company have lately struck a patch of gold that for richness in proportion to the amount of wash with which it is compounded is really splendid, the glittering metal being so distinctly perceptible to the eye as almost to bear resemblance to a solid golden bar. I am, however, unable to give you any idea of _ the extent of this golden seam or lead, but it is reported on our little goldfield that it is likely to extend into the adjoining claim, which belongs to the Perseverance Company.

In a letter published in the Daily Timos with reference' to tho proposed peripatetic school of mines, Mr J, A. Miller, of Arrowtown, says :— Tho great advantage of local instruction upon local specimens would be that the study is brought within the reach of a wider circle by being simplified. In districts, for instance, where only gold and silver occurred, the instruction may be limited to these metals, and "Sigma's" 2000 spocimens may be brought down to, say, 200 ; and such a process is exactly what is needed. I think it is a very great mistake to pander to the pomposity and state of any science, and this is directly pernicious if indulged in when applied to its purely practical aspect. " Sigma's" 2000 specimens is, in my opinion, a very great mistake, and tends only to make those who may have thought to go through a course of mining instruction pause and consider. The Colony has expended considerable sums on the establishment of geological museum and professors, who no doubt have done a vast amount of good, but it is not exactly of the nature which the Colony most requires. It is time that the Colony tried to reap a re* turn for the amount expended. It is a poor recompense to be able to stare at geological museums and maps, showing us our mineral wealth as if in a dream, when cries of stagnation periodically recur, andthebone and sinew of the country— the young labouring population of the Colony— are driven from its shores in hundreds, and nothing is done by the Government to turn to account the, mineral resources, the existence of which it has spent so much to ascertain.