Notes from Wakatipn. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2274, 30 September 1897, Page 18

Notes from Wakatipn. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

Artiowt.own, September 25 — The reported finds of good prospects in the ground of the Arrow Falls Tunnel Company will be welcome news t> the shareholders of the new company* ■which has just been successfully formed in lnv«rcargill. A great deal of unremunerative work has lieen done in this claim for the past seven or eight years, and' it may be takon for granted tint the heaviest portion has been cnnpleted. With ordinary luck' in inspect of the weather the shareholders may look forwaid to dividends during the coming summer.

Coal seems to be coming to the fore in several pu-ts of "the district. The other diy we bad ths Glendhu c ial in the market as a company, and now the Gibbston Cual Company is offering a venture that should go off like new bread at the present, time when dredging, upon the Kawarau is about to be takon up with vigour. The property is that known as lJooley's since the very early days of the Wakafipu district, and after passing through seveval bands it was worked for many years by Mr J. Cowan. Although the pic has been worked for such a length of time all that has been done is to prove the existence of a body of praoticalljUnexhaustible extent of first-clas? coal that has held its own against all local and imported lignite, including the Nightcaps, Kiitangata, and other favoured kinds. C»pitsu is required to open the mine at a lower level in order to command a constant supply, and it is to the interest of everybody in the district to extend to the compvny all possible support. As a Bign of the great effort made by science and trado in aiding the development of mining by-the introduction of machinery may ba taken the great number of publications, advertising and otherwise, that are percolating through the mining world. One of the latest aud most complete is Jaffiny's Machinery llegister, a monthly, publication giving a resume of ,all the latest inventions. Mr Robsit Neill, of Diinedin, is the agent for this aa well as for sevei al other publications, and fnvoais in this and similar lines. Mr Neill, who is evidently a business man of great energy and push, seems to bo for ever on the alert for everything new and practical or whatever is calculated to foster the mining and other industries, and has already rendered services to t everal Otago industrial pursuit* fiimcient to mark him as a public beaefactor. There is perhap? no man 'in Otago, and few in the colony," who is mo>e at home in this particular line than Mr Neill, who makes it bis business to watch closely all that is going on in tbe industrial world. To show the tenacity with which old mining notions survive and cling to life, the case of two Shotover miners way be mentioned. Messrs J. Joh'nbton aud J. M'Carron, who sjunt a considerable amount of money and time in opening a claim in the Khotover River, obtained whe.n everything wa3 in working order 2Sooz of gold in seven weeks. For one of them this was not enough, and, infested with the Klondyke fever, J. Johnston fold his slm-e for £150 oisH to go to the new El Dorado, while M'Carron started on a holiday trip to Victoria. Be it understood there is no sign of the goli in the Slntover claim giving out, and that the season for working it is exceptionally favourable ; but so strongly doe< the god fever affect some natures that fortunes are thrown away in tho hope of sacuriug larger ones — a thing that was quite the ordinary run on the rushes in the olden days.