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time sand is thrown into the pan with a shovel. Steam is either admitted into the steam.chamber below thejpanS or directly into the pulp ; some pans are covered to assist in retaining the heat. When properly managed the temperature may be kept up to 200° Fahrenheit. The exhaust steam from an engine should never be admitted directly into the pulp, on account of it beingcharged "to some extent with oil, which is highly injurious to amalgamation. The muller is gradually lowered after the commencement of the grinding operation, and is allowed to make from sixty to seventy revolutions per minute, and the grinding operation is continued for about two hours, after which the muller is raised and quicksilver is added. The quantity of quicksilver used for a charge of 1,5001b. of ore varies, according to the ideas of different millmen, from 2001b. to 2501b. When the quicksilver has been added the muller is again set in motion, and kept revolving for about two hours. It may be well to add that in about half an hour after charging the pans a quantity of salt and sulphate of copper is added—about 101b. of the former and 21b. of the latter, but this varies according to the character of the ore. The muller is kept revolving for two hours after the quicksilver is added, after which the pulp is drawn off into a settler, and plenty of clean water is used to rinse out the pans previous to adding another charge. Generally two of these pans are discharged into one settler. When the charge is drawn off it should not fill the settler, but there should be plenty of room to allow a spray of clean water to fall into the settler like a shower of rain. The arms of the settler are kept revolving slowly for about four hours, and the water is gradually drained off the settler from the upper discharge, until at last the quicksilver and amalgam are drained off', and the residue in the settler is drained into an agitator having a constant stream of water flowing into it. The diluted pulp from the agitators is sometimes siphoned off into concentrators, and after the pulp and slimes leave the concentrator the tailings are run over a great length of blanket-sluices from 200 ft. to 300 ft. long. These blanket-sluices are washed about once a week, but only very little is saved on them. There are, however, silver-ores found in Puhipuhi that are too rebellious to work by the Washoe: these will require to be roasted to drive away the sulphur, antimony, arsenic, and other volatile products. The dry process was first practised in Washoe on rich ores, when they were crushed dry and roasted with a little salt in reverberatory furnaces, and afterwards treated by the Freiberg barrel-amalgamation. In roasting these ores they are at first subjected to a very dull heat, when the sulphur takes fire, and goes off in sulphurous acid or oxidized sulphur during the first stage of roasting. Some of the oxidized sulphur will combine with other metals, which, under the influence of heat and air, have been converted into oxides, to form metal sulphates. The silver is also converted into a sulphate. Antimony and arsenic are oxidized, and pass into the flue or up the chimney; but certain proportions may combine with other metallic oxides and form antimoniates and arsenates. In the first stage of roasting, the oxygen in the air plays an important part. Dead roasting is scarcely necessary with silver-ores. In the next stage "the ore is mixed with a certain proportion of salt and subjected to a greater heat, when the remaining sulphur in the sulphates combines with the salt, and chlorine is liberated, and the silver-sulphates will be converted into silver-chlorides, and will be in the best condition for amalgamation. Coeomandel District. The yield of gold from this district last year is not so large as for the former one; nevertheless mining ventures on the whole present a more healthy aspect than they have presented for some years. This is in a great measure due to the introduction of English capital, which has been expended on mines with the view of working them on a commercial basis. This is a district which is remarkable for rich auriferous veins, leaders, and lodes ;at the same time it may be termed very patchy. A rich block of stone may be found, and very rich specimens obtained, but it is very seldom that the run of gold continues for any great distance. A block of good stone, and rich veins and leaders, may be found almost in any place; but there is nothing regular—it may cut out any day. Still, it is man}' times found again as suddenly as it cut out. It is a field that is likely to afford profitable employment to individual miners in the high ranges for many years to come—at least, for the present generation. Tokateaßange. —This range has been worked on since 1862, and exceedingly rich patches of goldbearing stone have from time to time been found. Claims have been repeatedly given up as worked out, and other parties have again taken them up and done remarkably well. The same thing takes place yet. Men may work for a few months and get nothing, and leave the ground, and another party "take it up and get well paid for their labour. The whole of this range is a network of stringers and leaders running in every direction, and, although the range is completely burrowed with adits and drives, it still continues to give good results for working. The miners are now quite accustomed to this system of following the small thread-like veins of quartz, which occasionally widen out to two and three inches thick, and generally where this takes place rich stone is found. There is no other place in the colony where quartz-mining can be carried on with more success by individual miners than on the Tokatea Eange. They have not a large output, and do not require expensive crushingplant. If they get three or four tons of quartz during the year, it pays them for their labour. If the quartz does not yield lOoz. of gold per ton it is considered poor stone. It is a question well worth considering whether this range would not pay for quarrying it in a face and transmitting the material by tramways to the flat, an 3 putting it through a crushi>ig-plant erected on the.most approved principle. At present there is not a plant on the field that extracts anything like a fair percentage of the gold". Indeed, except in the case of very rich specimen-stone, it is questionable if 60 per cent, of the gold is obtained. The following statement will show the quantity of quartz crushed from some of the claims on the range during the past year, and the yield of gold therefrom;—