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tend with. As soon as the low level cut the lode, some 40ft. south of the winze, it drained the water. According to the assays made from the ore in this winze and the low level by Mr. P. Callan, a late student of the Thames School of Mines, they show it to be ore of a high value. There has been calls paid into this company to the extent of £2,663 75., and from the sale of reserved shares the sum of £890 2s. 3d. was obtained, and the proceeds of the sale of gold produced was £71 13s. lid., making the total receipts from calls and gold to be £3,565 3s. 5d., and the expenditure has been as follows : — £ s. a. Wages, contracts, mine requisites, timber, &c, for mine .. 1,339 3 7 Wages and incidental expenses in working battery ... ... 353 5 9 On account of plant and miscellaneous items in connection with crushing plant ... ... ... ... ... 2,374 9 9 Office expenditure... ... ... ... ... ... 282 15 5 £4,349 14 6 From the report read by the secretary at the last annual meeting of the company it is intended to place this property, in conjunction with some others, on the London market. There were originally 58,500 shares allotted in this company, but 16,655 of these have since been forfeited for non-payment of calls. Komata. —This is now incorporated with the Golden Cross, and belongs to the Waitekauri Company, recently formed in London. Mining operations were steadily carried on for the past year. A winze has been sunk to a depth of 120 ft. below the adit-level, and a cross-cut driven from the bottom of same to intersect the different reefs, which proved that both lodes at this depth contain better stone than has recently been obtained, and that the gold is of a good quality. Six men have been employed in the mine during the past year, and for that period 705 tons of quartz have been crushed, which yielded by amalgamation 10,4070z. bullion, and by the cyanide process 9780z. Also, 895 tons of tailings were treated, which gave a return of 2,1080z. bullion by cyanide solutions and 21oz. by amalgamation. The value of the bullion obtained last year was £4,907 2s. Alpha. —A lode was found by some parties near the hopper of Komata Mine ; it only showed about lft. in thickness at first, but on driving on it for about 100 ft. it increased to a thickness of 3ft. and contained payable ore. It is said that there are several lodes in the locality, and it has been arranged to form a company to work this mine and We Three Mine under the no-liability clause of "The Companies Act, 1894," with a capital of £7,500 in 50,000 shares of 3s. each, 35,000 of which are to be allotted to the present shareholders and 15,000 reserved for the use of the company. The rules adopted for conducting the affairs of the company specify that no transfer fees are to be paid, and no call is to exceed 3d. per share. Waihi. At the present time this may be said to be the most important mining locality in the colony as far as results are concerned. Any one who visited this place eleven years ago, and seeing the bleak, barren "pakihi," and the Martha Company working the lode (from which the Waihi Company are now getting such good returns) and only managing to make ends meet, little dreamed of the prosperous place it was likely to become. At that time one store and a small publichouse constituted the township ; but recently a considerable township has sprung into existence, and during my visit in January last a large number of buildings were going up. The hotel and accommodation-houses were so full on the night of my arrival that even a shake-down could not be got. Mr. Corbett, of Waitekauri, who accompanied me to this field, at last found me comfortable quarters in Mr. Gilmour's —the manager of the Waihi Mme —private residence. But, if the whole aspect of the township is altered, so, much more, is the mine. Instead of about a dozen men being employed in the place, there is now 230 men employed in connection with the Waihi Mine and reduction-works. Waihi. —The main shaft had been sunk to a depth of 239 ft. at the time of my visit. A crosscut was opened out from the shaft at 136 ft. from the surface, and a level driven on the Martha lode for 481 ft. in one direction, and 194 ft. in the opposite direction from the cross-cut. The lode maintains about the same width as on the Smithy level—namely, about 26ft. Although there was a great width in one place on the upper levels, the manager informed me that there was never payable ore for more than about 26ft. wide at any place. In the construction of the cross-cut referred to, a lode was cut at a distance of 120 ft. from the shaft, which is now termed the Welcome Lode. The distance between the latter and the Martha is about 66ft. This lode, after being driven on for 180 ft. on the western end, split in two branches, one going towards the Martha and the other towards the south. About 100 ft. was driven in each of the branches, and in the southern branch there was a good deal of water coming out of the face. When this branch was driven ahead to the Martha lode it drained the water from that lode, which would make it appear that this lode will again effect a junction with the Martha lode some distance to the south. The following is an extract of an interesting description of this mine, as published in the Auckland Weekly Neivs, wherein the writer states that the last time he visited the Waihi Company's mine it was at its turning-point, and shareholders and others were looking forward with some anxiety for the completion of the works then in progress. Up to that time the mighty reef, varying in size from 16ft. to 20ft., had only been worked from the surface to the adit-level, and a shaft had been put down for opening out the levels beneath the surface. " Would the reef continue ? Would it carry gold downwards ? It was true that these questions were, to some extent, answered by the winzes which had been sunk for a depth of about 40ft. or so ; but the drive from the shaft, 80ft. below the adit-level, had not then reached the reef, and the supply of ore from the upper levels to the surface was all they had to rely upon to keep a plant