MINING.

Otago Witness, Issue 1880, 2 December 1887, Page 12

MINING.

A Reply to "Mount Mtfg&n » and v Benditfo." ¥6 *HB EDITOB. Sm,— Will Mount Morgan " also grant that it would be of great advantage to the colony that onr miners should have some reliable acquaint* ance with the gold-saving agents' which are successfully applied elsewhere for the extract£o£ 'of gold ? Among these agents as " MputA Morgan" no doubt know8 v chlorine isfcODaiag rapidly to the front. It has in skilled heads proved remarkably suitable for dealing with two different kinds of mineral— fi) the brown gold-bewmg oxide of iron mixture of Mount Morgan 1 ; and (2) the gold-bearing iroa. pyrites of t>ar New Zealand goldfields. ( Bu.t w hat d 6 otc mmers know about chlorine? Or, for titeo matter of that, how much ''do moat of them really know about pyrites itself, er about the Mount Morgan stene; Poor fellows ! there is no class in fcfee Community so ' eager for information oh bu'ih subjects, or who possess so keen an intelligence in apprehending any facts competed therewith when clearly put before them. I don't believe that one out of every 1000 of them ever saw chlorine till they saw it made in our schools of minesv And ndw 1 , thanks to Mr Larnach mid his technical schools, 5000 of our miwars 5n B6ta isWdii have not only eeeififc made-, but;, have see\H uk properties, use and mode of attp"Kc»tfah for the saving of gold demonstrated oy suitable experiments, at 11 otyctek at night, on 50 lecture-tables, in as many Brining centres in the colony. Not only so, but I am within the mark when i tell « Mount Morgan" that I could find 1000 miners on our goldfields to-ddy who can now make chlorine themselves and use it successfully for this purpose. And I shaU tr&y,,. besides-, that during the year that ended with Mr karna'ch's resignation of the gofcfctofio of Mines, the 'manufacture of c&larfne and its atipUdetfdn 'to fcoldsavißg purposes were taught ?6'clas'Ses of miners and of Opper-form schboltfoys as part of the ordinaryjlessons in 24 Schools of mines established on our jroldfield^ What; Mr Lamach did was, not to intimate to t&e miners that, by laying down their legitimate work for a few weeks or months aud making their way the best way they could from their mines among the ranges to the large and highly favoured cities on the eastern ffeafeoa^d", and by taking up their abode there, they could learn the use of. chlorine and Of sodium amalgam and the testing of quartz and pyrites and other minerals for gold .and bilver, lead, copper, and tin. No, "MOutit Morgan" and " Bendigo " (what paltry things these names represent when seen on the same page with Larnach), it was deemed wiser to leave the 5000 miners at all day in their mines and beside their families, and invite them to come out in the evening, after their work for the day was done, and learn* from ? to 11 p.m. on five days of the week in the BchooJs of mines planted in their ruidsti what chlorine and aqUa rqgkt and sodium amalgam are like, how they are made, what they are good for, and how they are used rot the saving of gold. t would like to be able, tyi give v Mount Morgan" the credit of toeing aware" that there are hundreds of thousands of tons of pyrites in the 'quartz reefs on the goldfields of this colony containing from loz up to lOOoz of gold per ton. It would be a very foolish thing, in the course of a serious discussion like this, to state an estimate of the value of the gold in this state that is accessible to the miner aud suitable for the chlorination process; but it is perfectly safe to say that the value would have to be stated in millions of pounds sterling. Well, there it is ; and thero are our miners looking at it. Cannot " Mount Morgan " (and " Bendigo w too, for the matter of that) see that it would not be at all a bad thing for the colony to introduce in an effective way these two parties to each other — the gold-bearing refractory pyrites and the intelligent miner with his chlorination plant ? [Will you ask " Mount Morgan " here if he will allow me to add, by way of parenthesis, that it is good news to the colony that the proprietors of the best chlorination plant (the Vautin and Newberry Co.) are prepared to supply the plant, free of original cost, nn tribute agreement where they are satisfied of the bona fides of the party aud where the material is sufficiently rich and abundant.]

What a colony ours would be if we had our miners bossing the mining world in the matter of information about gold-bearing minerals and gold-saving processes and appliances ! lam going to tell "Mount Morgan" at the close of my letter how this can very easily be done. Indeed, it was on the high road to its accomplishment when the Larnach schools of mines were in full swing ; and though we have now made a temporary divergence from the track, we shall soon resume our route and set an example that will be followed at a respectful distance by other mining communities.

We don't deserve to have the depression lifted and we shall probably not see it lifted until we use the means of recovery so clearly indicated by the results already achieved by these techincal schools in their infancy, and the promise they give of a splendid future for the mining interests of the colony.

I cannot, however, shut my eyes to the danger of speedy death from starvation on desertion by a paternal Government which these technical schools would incur if the views of such men as "Mount Morgan" and "Bendigo" were to have any weight in the community. There is also — " Mount Morgan " will admit — a great deal (worth knowing) to be learnt about the geology of reef-bearing rocks. It surely concerns a colony like ours that its quartz miners and mine managers and prospectors should not only have that practical acquaintance with reefs which familiarity with them for many years gives, but should also be up in the accepted theories of how quartz reefs were formed, how the quartz got into them, and whence and under what conditions the gold and silver were brought in. One would suppose that anyone could recognise a piece of quartz ; and yet so different are different kinds of gold-bearing quartz that I have known many minors in this island that would not recognise as quartz a piece of goldbearing paying quartz from the Martha mine at Waihi, iv the Thames district. I have a piece of that quartz in the University laboratory here, and shall be glad to show it to " Mount Morgan" or " Bendigo " if they send in the'r cards and call round to have a look at it. This Martha stone is very like the Portobello quartz, and they had probably a similar origin. Well, what I am trying to say is that all our mine managers and as many as possible of our quartz miners should be regular "dons" on the subject of quartz in whatever form and under whatever conditions they may find it.

I must not, however, be understood to say . that the teaching staff of our schools of mm' L know more about quartz than our mine manaf erg and many of our miners. On the contrary members of the teaching staff— with tb- J ex . ception of perhaps Messro Montgomer q an( j Fenton, the directors respectively of the ' Thames aud Reefton Schools of Mine?, and botll oW students of my own and Professor Ulr ■j e h_i iavQ a great deal to learn from the mi abo t quartz ; and the practical miner ,-, never B0 happy as when expounding to they ,j teachers the peculiar features of the reefs n« b worked, apd

rd&tibg m strange and. aoittcUmes pathetic experiences in man- ft m fo& gg u t what I mean is that the S^mtet* v? the teaching staff of tbeoc schouis 6f mints, who have studied thn tjlumilstry and mineralogy of mineral to? y^ars in lhJ6 mining and mineralogy classes of Proleftsot Ulrich, and ia Qly ofcu laboratory &iJ Metallurgy wad assaying classy in tae University here", mast have a gfce&t deal of lufdrmation which would be tißgw! 16 miuer's about the secrets arid yperatJoirts of Nature in her processes of building ap the reefs, and introducing mto them the gold a,nd silver and otter valuable minerals whicli they'contafa.

It fs a fa<^ fiow well enough know,n,Jfpr example '(although its discovery revolutionised the whole theory of the .formation, of quarts reefs), that although,, .water eifci&S fresh or charged with acid canned dissolve quartz, yet that it calA ttader certain conditions that constantly Occur in underground rocks, hold the substance of quartz in solution, as raw material wherewith to build up the reefs. The chemist also contributes information as to the conditions under which gold can travel along in solution in subterranean water", and he teaches by what agencies sUch gold water will give up Its btlrdefi Of precious ..metal. The practical nttner, charged. wifcLa worjd of information 'about thVreefs-^eir mode b"f occur* re'n'ce'jtnei'r^oii^sß ana tn&s underlie, their contractions 'and tn&lr expansions, the faulting of them bj a more recent vein or lode, and their recovery at a different level in the country rock beyond,— meets Mr Montgomery or Mr Fenton, % who explains the causes of these and many more phenomena that were badly in want of clearing up; contributing from his side how, down through the geological ages> the fissures were being formed^ anti how the quart 1 * and ( tne gold', &c. .were coming into theni. I?h'eJesßon 16 concluded oy the manufacture of quarts on the lecture table by passing a colourless gas through clear water. A solution of gold which, save for its yale yellow colour, one might mistake for pure water, is added to the newly-made quartz, and then a few drops of a greenish liquid, got by steeping in water for a few minutes a mineral that occurs in abundance on the Thames and in many of the Middle Island goldfields, is poured over it, when forthwith the quartz just manufactured before his eyes is found trt fee Highly charged with.solid , Jtfow 1 , \ don'?; b'now whether " Mount Morgan " is following me, or, if he is, whether he is impatient to ask— What's the good of it all ? Well, the good of it as I take it is this : You are, on the small scale, with strong agents imitating in the course of a few minutes the operations of Nature on the large scale with the same agents (though very much diluted) during the long geological ages. Your operations on the laboratory table and in the cruciole are essentially the same as those of Nature. You compensate for the long periods 6f time at her disposal fey, using the same agents in a more concentrated form. The raw materials are the same in eVery essential particular*, the processes are of the same kind, and the results are similar. " Knowledge is power," and I daresay " Mount Morgan " will admit that the miner who has in this way been let into the 6ecrets of Nature and who feels himself associated with her in her silent operations, works on a higher platform than the outsider who, not being acquainted with her laws, is perpetually breaking them and paying the consequences. To the former the laws of Nature are powerful instruments for the accomplishment of his objects, while to the latter they offer a stubborn resistance in the impossible success of his illjudged plans.

The difference between the instructed miner and the worker by rule of thumb comes oub in a hundred ways. The former, knowing the conditions under which the quart* reefs were formed and the agents that brought the gold into them, does not waste his time looking for reefs where they cannot be, and does hot spend his energies and his capital trying to get out the gold that does not exist, and when he finds a good thing in the form of a lode that will pay dividends, he will, from his knowledge of tho laws of Nature, be able to keep the run of it and get the benefit of whatever wealth it may contain.

There is also a great deal to be learnt about the gold»bearing alluvial drifts that occur in many parts of this island; as at Blue Spur, Waitahuna, Waipori, Nevis, Bannockburn, Tinkers to St. Bathans, Nasehy> Hamilton, Orepuki, and other parts of Otago ) and at Ross, Rimu, Humphrey's Gtully, Kanieri, Waimea, Kumara, Nelson Creek, Charleston, and other parts of the West Coast.

How were these drifts formed? Whence did the materials come ? What is the source of the gold they contain ?• Was it brought down, as we find it, by the flood waters that broke down the mountains and dropped their debris on their course to the sea? Or has it in some cases grown where we now find it P I wonder if " Mount Morgan '* (I don't; think I need bother "Bendigo") is aware that the philosopher's stone has been discovered, that there has been found, travelling underground, a liquid that can convert iron pyrites and a dozen other things besides into yellow gold ; that you can now grow nuggets, not exactly as you would grow potatoes or onions, but very much aa Nature grows .carbonate of lime icicles hanging from the roofs of limestone caves, and which the geologists call stalactites, or as you can change iron for copper on the blade of your knife when you dip it into a solution of bluestone, or as you can grow crystals of alum or salt or copperas from a liquid containing these salts in solution.

A great deal has been learnt about nuggets and alluvial gold since Mr Selwin announced, 20 years ago, his belief that " nuggets grow." It would surely be to the interest of our diggers to become acquainted practically with the conditions under -which gold can exist in travelling water both in suspension and in solution, and how it can get itself deposited bodily in the former case, and in the latter convert pyrites and various other substances into nuggets of yellow gold.

If " Mount> Morgan" should show signs of interruption 4 will you kindly ask him to hold on till I've dr >u e; and you can promise, on my behalf, th A t I shall say the rest of it in two further inst Almeuts— the last being devoted to the constiti and cost of such a system of schools of mi^es for the colony as Mr Larnach was rapid jy constructing and had all but completed, aQ d which I think the country at present reQ U) res. — I am, &c, J. G. Black. November 21,