MINING NEWS.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1197, 20 November 1882, Page 2

MINING NEWS.

[From our Mining Reporter.]

Saturday, November 18,

j Business throughout the week has been inactive, and sales have been few and far between. The excellent return obtained by the Golden Fleece Extended at the close of last week had the effect of raising the market value of shares, but sellers were not easily found and therefore very few transactions were recorded. The fact that this was Court week to some extent unhinged business, The application made for the cancellation of the Lucky Hit lease was viewed as a sort of test case, and the general impression was I that in the event of the Warden deciding to recommend the cancellation the Court would be immediately afterwards inundated with a flood of similar applications, and for this reason a general feeling of unsecurity prevailed. It is no secret whatever that fully sixty or seventy per cent, of the other companies in the field stand in precisely the same position as the Lucky H it, and therefore the argument in favor of the cancellation of the one would, if successful, be applicable to the whole, and the district would witness a jumping craze of a most dangerous kind. Fortunately, however, for outside shareholders the application failed and the Lucky Hit Company will probably profit by the escape. It is an evil, no doubt, to -sec an enormous area of the field locked up by inoperative companies, but after all it "would be a much greater evil to encourage wholesale jumping merely for the purpose of placing fresh holders in occupation, who would do no more with the ground than is being clone by the present lessees. It is evident, however, that the time is coming in the progress of this field when some cast iron rule will have to be enforced in relation to the occupation of mining areas, but it seems to us this cannot be done until capital is more abundant,

and greater facilities in the way of railway communication are offered to outside enterprise. The following are the battery returns for the past week : — Keep it-Dark. —4olozs. of amalgam from 189 tons of stone. Welcome.— 323ozs. of amalgam from 60 tons of atone. (Four days' crushing. ) Goldes Fleece Extended.— 3s7oza. of amalgam from 127 tons of stone.