LYELL MINING.

Inangahua Times, Volume VII, Issue 1213, 29 December 1882, Page 2

LYELL MINING.

(Times.) UNITED VICTROY COMPANY. Friday, December 15, At the end of last week this company's battery was thoroughly cleaned up, the directors having decided to make a fresh start, and subject the quartz to more careful treatment. The result of the cleaning was 52ozs. lldwt. of retorted gold from 70 tons of stone. This week Mr T, Waters, manager of the United Alpine battery, at the request of the Victory directors, pioceodcd to New Creek to report

upon the condition of the battery. He reports that the plates are in , excellent order, the principal colleo- ' tion of amalgam being upon the upper portion, proving thereby that ( there is little loss of fine gold. He . found that the skimmings had not been saved, but had been allowed to ; take the chance of being caught in the ripples, so that it is very likely ! the greater portion have been lost. 1 He had no data whereby to estimate the loss from this cause, as the pro- ' portion of skimmings varies in differ- . ent reefs, but it is likely to be from 6 to 8 dwts. per ton. This can be i avoided in future by the skimmings being collected and cleaned. He found the silver clean, and there did not appear to be any loss of gold through its being sickened by the sulphides of base metals, If there was loss of gold from that cause, the berdan should give a higher yield, whereas it only yields the amount of amalgam to be expected from the quality of stone crashed, Mr Waters accounts for the loss of silver by the high rate of speed at which the berdan was originally driven, making it almost impossible to retain silver. This, however, has been remedied by reducing the driving pully, The above has been kindly placed at our disposal by Mr Hungerford, a director of the company. The battery is at present under the temporary charge of Mr John M'Bean, pending the appointment of a permanent manager.