Page:Downey•Quartz·Reefs·West·Coast•1928.pdf/100

known as the south-east block, was stoped up for some distance towards No. 9 level. It was going underfoot on No. 10, and a winze was sunk for a few feet on it, and when the winze was discontinued the stone was still going down, but nothing more was ever done by way of prospecting lower down for this stone. The intention of the management had been to search for it by means of an intermediate level between Nos. 10 and 11, but, although an intermediate was carried in towards the block at 90 ft. above No. 11, it was never extended sufficiently far to reach the stone. Portion of this block therefore remains undeveloped, and there may be other blocks or portions of blocks left in the same way, but the expense that would now have to be incurred in picking up the old levels to get into the parts of the mine where they are likely to be would be too great to warrant search for them being made under existing conditions. As to further prospecting on No. 12 level, or at greater depth below it, it must be said there seems little to justify it. The most work there the writer could recommend would be the putting-in of two short crosscuts, with a view to determining definitely whether or not the downward continuation of the shoots worked higher up have been missed on the level.

North Big River Mine.—This mine adjoined the Big River on the north. In 1909 William Kirwan located on it the outcrop of a reef which was subsequently traced by trenching for about 500 ft. along the surface. It was from a few inches up to 3 ft. in width, and was said to prospect fairly well. Shortly after the discovery an adit was put in, at a point about half a mile from the Big River shaft, to cut the vein about 50 ft. below the outcrop and 150 ft. from daylight. In this adit several reef-tracks were cut, one of which, met at 70 ft. from the portal, carried small boulders of gold-bearing quartz in very wet and broken country. Subsequently the prospecting party put in another adit, known as No. 2, at a depth of 150 ft. below No. 1, which, with the assistance of Government subsidy, they drove for 497 ft. At 250 ft. from the portal a small reef-track was met with, but it contained no gold, and for the last 150 ft. the driving was on a small reef that carried gold, but not in payable quantity. The party also started a third adit, 163 ft. below No. 2, but after driving this for about 100 ft. work was suspended. In 1919 a company known as the North Big River Mines, Ltd., was formed to give the property another trial. This company extended No. 3 adit about 600 ft. farther to the south, to come under the old surface workings, and also did hundreds of feet of crosscutting from it, but nothing was found except small reef-tracks carrying occasional boulders or blebs of poor quartz. The company also put in another adit, known as No. 1 Intermediate, 40 ft. below No. 1 adit, and connected Nos. 1 and 2 adits by rises and winzes, but in these workings no better results were met with than in No. 3 adit. A further work carried out by the company was the putting-in of what was termed No. 4 adit on another reef to the westward of that on which the other adits mentioned were driven. This adit was only very few feet under the surface, on the course of a reef about 3 ft. in width, but the stone was found so poor that, after going 100 ft. on it, operations were abandoned.

National Mine.—It is somewhat doubtful if this claim was on Doogan’s line, but it deserves passing mention. A small reef was found outcropping on it by John Gill in 1891, and a drive was put in on it for 150 ft., but the reef was very broken. A parcel of 66 tons of stone taken from it was crushed but it yielded only 12 oz. gold, or, say, 3·8 dwt. per ton.