Notes from Wakatipu.

Otago Witness, Issue 2161, 25 July 1895, Page 20

Notes from Wakatipu.

(From Our Own Cokrespondtsnt.) Arrowtown, July 20.— The news of the resuscitation of the Glenrock (late I'remier) Guld Company, llacetown, should be hailed with much' satisfaction by all who take an interest in our mines, i onsidering them as a national asset quite apart from the stimulant given to trade by the expenditure of ao much foreign capital. That for all the money spent and labour done upon our reefs very little is as yet known of their 'real characteristics must be conceded by all whose opinion is worth having. With the exceptions of the Achilles mine, Skipper.-), not a single mine hs,B been sunk upon or worked below th* water levt«l of the creeks or gullies upon the banks of which the outcrops of stone were found. In the case of the exception — i c., the ' Achilles mine, the venture of sinking to a depth of about 250 ft has proved singularly^successlul. Not only has paying •stose -been met with, but the lodes worked turned out to, be much more regular, better defined, and giving a much greater promise of permanence than was the case at any higher level. Be.sides tbis there is the unproved theory of the lodes worked and working ' being offshoots only of a vast main or mother lode running from Maoetown through Skippers and into the Rees Valley. This and other like \ and likely contii.ger.cies are subjects too v>ist to be discussed within the bounds of a weekly letter. Suffice it to say that California has one such " mother " lode tiO miles in length ; tbatß-iudigo and Ballaiat have lodes conforming with fuch a designation, and why not Otago ? The Ilomeward Bound, the All Nations, the Garibaldi, the Tipperary,' the Sunrise, and other lines of lodes at Macetown all run more or less parallel, tieuding towards the 'miin axis of the mountain ranjre, upon the flanks of which they are situated. To go just a step farther, it may bB mentioned that near tne top of Advance JPeak," above Macttown, there is a massive outciop of solid stone 30ft wide which answers in its strike and dip, in ijia location, and iv its general character all the conditions required in a true mother lode. Even allowing that, as in the case of California, such a mother U de should be barren of gold, or at most payably auriferous at intervals only, which is by no means a fixrd characteristic of a mother lode, the existence of such a lode in North Otago would completely revolntionibe the local quartz-mining notions of the present day. But interesting a 9 the subject ia, neither space nor time will allow of its further discussion. In spite of the severe weather a good deal of prospec'iug is going on in several parts of this field. It would appear tbat the threatened descent of the unemployed upon our gullies and rivers is working as a stimulant upon our miners, au effect probably not caleuU/ed upon by the organisers of the movement Gold-mi aing is essentially a selfish occupation. Parties upon the Shotover river working in the bed of the stream are repoited to be doing fairly well. The river is low, with a tendency to a still further reduction of its volume Bank agents and gold buyers are loud in their complaints about the scircity of the rrecious metal, but in spite of all this there is not a word of an advance in its pice. and 77s per ounce is rigidly and frigidly adhered to.