FORTUNES AT THE FINISH.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 144360, 26 March 1914, Page 7

FORTUNES AT THE FINISH.

MINERS’ LUCK AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR. “Boss, come here/’ said ono of the “boys’* in the employ of Mr Bowker, an Englishman who was working a diamond claim at Droogeveld, on tho Vaal River. Tho boss came, and the Kaffir showed him a huge diamond of 1781 carats, or nearly the size of tho Koh-i-noor. This was m October last, and on the very day when Mr. Bowker and his partner had decided to abandon the . claim which had produced only a few , small stones. Needless to say, they did t not leave, and a few days later they 1 hit upon another diamond even larger *. than the first It was of 1961 carats, and sold in the rough for £1770. It is strange how often tho miner makes a fortune out of an abandoned or almost abandoned claim. * There was such a case at Waara .Yarra, in Australia, in May, 3003. Two 'Kingston miners bought an old claim for a song, and" found it in. such bad condition that it needed timbering all through. One wanted to give it up, but the other suggested that they might try their luck lor a day or two. So they took some props down and sot to work. ■ Tho first man stuck his pick into the clay roof to make a hole for a prop, aiv'l down fell a largo stone almost on his head. But it was not a stone. It was a nugget ot pure gold, weighing llSoz. MADE TWO MILLIONS IN A YEAR. The richest copper mine in the world is tho United Vcrdo in Arizona. It was originally found by a couple m ranchers who sold it fur 10,090 dollars (£2000) to two men named Murray and Trimble. They worked it and found little cooper, and were absolutely at the end of their rcsouiccs when they struck a pocket not of copper but of silver ore which netted them a sum of £16,000. ' H hey came to an end of the silver and abandoned the mine as worthless Then Sinati Clark came down § from Montana and bought the old claim for a few hundreds. He struck the real vein of copper, and within ton years it made him ono of the richest men in tbo world. In a single twelvemonth he took out copper valued at £2,400.000. This calls to mind the even more famous Mount Morgan gold mine. The first owner of the land was Donald Gordon, who grazed his flocks above untold and unknown riches, and sold the land for a pound an acre to two brothers named Morgan. They set to work, and the quartz panned out up to 800 oz. of gold to the ton. The mine proved a great source of wealth to the shareholders. One shareholder left u fortune of £2,311,000GraduMly rho gold quartz petered out and the Mount Morgan mine was supposed to be dead. Then some clever mineralogist, poking about the half-deserted works, realised that there was more copper than gold. In 1906 the mine was reborn as a copper producer and a new piocess was discovered tor extracting gold from tho copper. To-day Mount Morgan is still going strong.