NOTES ON A TRIP TO VICTORIA.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 18 March 1881, Page 2

NOTES ON A TRIP TO VICTORIA.

No. StVI: . ..JiL' .V: > SWJBLI. There are eight shafts at Stawell all over 1000 feet deep, i The deepest being i Magdala 2410 feet, and the Newington 1940 feet, the former is, indeed, the deepest shaft in Australia. By the courtesy of Mr d| M'Clintock, the manager of the Maglala. we descended the mine to the 2048 J^t level. At this Sntail veitijl^B^toßspiiiehe* in thickness had been nWt with, but though golcUbeating, was nip payable^ The line was, however, driveijlon for some dis« tance, but it gradually got poorer, and was finally abandoned. .Returning to the shaft, we descended tor the 2086 feet level. Here another small gold-bearing run of stone was met with in sinking, and this, too, ivas driven on in the expec* tation that it might bts found to junction with the vein overhead, and so probably pay to take out. iFwo men were at work at the time at a; face about 100 feet from the shaft, but the'' stone up to thnt point showed no symptom of making. The quartz was of^ a hard, yellowish character, and lying in well* defined walls, But, although we scanned it very closely,' could detect no trace of gold. The driving was carried on by hand, and apjf peared to be intensely hard. The workings were quite dry, and needed no timbering, but the heat was something terrible, although ib^air remained tolerably goo J. The men* work almost naked, and only do four-hojyr shifts on account of the distressing Mature of the labor. We had been down many shafts of from 1000 feet to 1500 feet, but this one capped the climax. The heat; on the surface was about 100 deg. in the shade, which we felt to be bad enough, but at the depth we were, it appeared It be quite 130 deg., and had we not graduated, so to speak,in deep journeying, I- do not believe we could have stood fhe temperature for twenty minutes. i»^ 'there seemed to be abundance of, ¥ t)fe shaft being large and divided into c|fnpartments, with a strong up and dowA^last, but in spite of this it was not ljpj|ying, and seemed deficient rn [(hi^ essential life»gmajg property. One cannot take in a long breath with any feeling of relief, and the whole body seems oppressed with a leaden burden, which is intensely pros* tratihg. Most people have probably at some period of life experienced the horn rible suffocating sensation accompanying dreams when the head is covered with the bed-clothes. This is, of course, only counterfeit, but in theMagdala you baye the genuine article. The altitude of Stawell being only 759 feet, we were in reality 1327 feet below the level of the soa, which will be found quite sufficient for the ambition of ordinary" sight'seers. The half-baked, sweltering workmen knocked off to enable us to examine the face,, but it may be imagined the place under such conditions was not very at» tractive, and we were glad enough to get bs?k to the shaft where the cage was in waging to convey U9 up to the surface, looking upwards from the bottom through two thousand feet the mouth of the shaft looked like a remote and solitary star shining in a firmament of darkness. The cages used are patent safety ones, covered overhead, aad so arranged that where the hauling rope to break in its upward or downward course, the cage would instantly become locked in the shaft, instead of falling to the bottom, and this if, of course, very comforting to timid excursionists. The hauling rope is of steel wire, hardly thicker than a clothesline, but with a breaking strain equal to a ship's hauser. The hauling engine is 55 horsepower, and taken altogether the plant is unrivalled. Ir is the intention of the company to erect 9 .Diamond drill at the bottom of the shaft, and bore a distance of 500 feet further, which will make the total depth' from the surface 3000 feet. The boring is now in progress. Some very rich stone has been obtained from the deep levels at Stawell ; 5250 tons of stone obtained from depths varying from 850 to 1200 feet averaged from 4 zs 2dwt 12gr to 6ozs 17Jwl 10gr per ton, and it is probably this fact which lends hope and encouragement to the Magdala share,* holders. However, the amount of money already sunk in the undertaking is some* thing prodigious, and the spirit of perseverance with which it has been pursued exhibits a strength of purpose such as has few parallels in the history of Vic torian quartz mining. The Oriental Company, of which Mr Thomas Kinsella is manager, was next visited. This mine ia being worked at a depth of 1060 feet, and gives employment to 30 miners. Four National rock drills were at work at the time, and the sight and sound which greet a visitor on entering the mine is something astonishing, At

Stawell they hare, in addition to the familiar inclined or vertical lode, what is termed a "flat" reef. This is a vast body of stone, often as ranch as 30 feet thick, lying perfectly horizonta 1 , just as a layer of ordinary trap-rock would do, and when this is taken out, as it is for, I believe, hundreds of yards on all sides, toe appearance of the mine is unique, i $5e timber used to support the ground is necessarily heavy. Much of it is 2 feet in diameter, and not more than three feet apart, and here and there vast pillars of timber are constructed. These are made with layers of 20 feet lengths laid side by side close together, and cross and cross up to the roof, against which they are firmly wedged, but even these are flat* tened*ont like so many tallow candles would be whenever the ground settles down. To stand at the shaft, and look through this forest of timber, and see the candles flickering on all sides, and over the whole the raw and clatter of the drills, makes one^Kl that he is in the presence of real iSing. At the face, it is hard to realise Kit one is a thousand feet below the Mr face ; the men are working from a perpendicular wall, and the escape of the •ora pressed air from the machines causes »draft, keeping the mine as cool and pun as in a dairy. The underground wtpcings in appearance may be likened tp the interior of a large circus tent, savHg that the floor is not exactly level. The si one here averages about loz per lon, so that it can be imagined this is/>ne of the swell mines of Stawell, and km already paid over a quarter of a mil/ion in dividends.