M'NAB AND COMPANY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XII, Issue 506, 1 March 1879, Page 3

M'NAB AND COMPANY.

This company have been crushing the cement, in their claim from a face taking everything before them, for the past eight months ; and it is satisfactory to be able to state that during that time it has paid them remarkably well. We are glad to be in a position to speak authoritatively on this matter, as a general impression is abroad that the great body of stuff will not pay for crushing. It certainly would not pay to put the stuff through the fine gratings that were in use when batteries were first introduced at the Spur ; but •with the open gratings now used a vast quantity of the cement can be daily sent through the mill. This Company, like the Otago and other Companies, had previously worked their ground by tunnelling, taking out the bottom ; "but when they conceived the idea of putting through everything that came before them, they determined upon doubling their crushing power, and in other respects improving their machinery and appliances. This they did, first by increasing their stampers from ten to twenty head, and substituting 1000 feet of large for small piping for driving their turbines. The cost of the additional machinery, piping, &c, was £2500 : and, as a good evidence of the paying nature of the claim, that sum was paid from the profits without a call being made upon any of the shareholders. Last week they washed up after a six weeks' run, and the result was a handsome dividend to each member of the Company. The machine works very smoothly, and seems to require very little attention. Instead of having a man constantly pottering about the machine to see that the stuff gets freely into the boxes, and other litile tiddlewiuking jobs, the machine is left to mind itself to a great extent. The man at work in the hopper, of course, gives a look at it occasionally, to see that everything is working properly. The machinery is running sixteen hours, or two shif ts. The number of hands employed is fifteen, and the quantity of stuff daily put through is 300 truck loads. As we have said, the gratings are very wide. This Company was amongst the first that adopted wide gratings, believing that the cement was sufficiently pulverised to let the gold free without being reduced so very fine as it had been customary to crush it. The advantage of working from a face is the great saving of labor thereby effected. Less than half the number of men are required to send a given quantity to the mill, and this company have a fine open face which they are at present working in three different places — viz., in the front and at each. side. They have a large quantity of ground yet before them, and it will be some years before they make a very perceptible difference upon it.