BLOWING UP A MOUNTAIN WITH DYNAMITE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 8036, 7 January 1905, Page 3

BLOWING UP A MOUNTAIN WITH DYNAMITE.

To blow up a mountain in order to facilitate mining is distinctly an American way of doing things. The greatest explosion (says the correspondent of the Sidney Daily Telegraph) that has ovtr been known in the near-by State, of Oregon has just occurred in the Galice Mountains, the diggings of the Royal Group Hydraulic mines being blown up with 80001b of dynamite. The mountains and canyons of the entire Galice district trembled as by an earthquake when the explosion happened. The report was heard for miles, an entire mountain was torn asunder, and huge rocks, earth, and gold gravel were hurled high in the air. The explosion* was not the work of malice or of accident. It was the climax to a work that had been under way for months by the Old Channel Mining Company. In order to achieve this new and unique method of mining, the manager, Mr John R. Harvey, had a big crew of men driving a long tunnel all summer through an auriferous mountain. luto this tunnel the 80001b of dynamite was carried; fuses and connecting fuses were set, and the flame applied. At first there was a low rumble, as if some of the sticks had gone off prematurely. This was quickly followed by a loud detonation, closing with a mighty and deafening crash, and the mountain was off the face of the globe— as a mountain. Its remains were strewn in such a way that the machines can be kept working, washing the earth through the sluices, as easily as if it were a great ash-heap. The ground of the company has paid from 40,000 to 75,000 dollars an acre in some years, and the owners believe they have levelled a mountain of

gold.