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shoots down to the eastward. It was undoubtedly this belief that led to the carrying-out of the extensive prospecting done for the Welcome shoot from the Eureka workings, and the prospecting to the east on the 1,000 ft. level of the Fiery Cross was prompted by the same conviction. Regarding the first-mentioned of these efforts to locate the shoots at depth, it is recorded that a number of reef-tracks were met with, and driven on. In the 1,000 ft. level of the Fiery Cross similar tracks were met, notably at 270–320 ft., 370–390 ft., and 440–455 ft. from the shaft. Two such prominent geologists as P. G. Morgan and Dr. J. Henderson, who examined this working, were agreed that one of these tracks—in all probability that at 370–390 ft.—actually represented the fault that cut off the Just-in-Time eastern (Walhalla) shoot, and possibly the Fiery Cross shoot also, and that if there was any chance of picking up the downward continuation of the former it would be either on this track or on that at 270–320 ft. The track at 440–455 ft. was driven on in a southerly direction for 300 ft. without finding anything but very occasional small pockets of barren quartz. The other two tracks were not driven on in that direction, but a crosscut was put out westerly from the end of the 300 ft. drive which intersected them. At the points of intersection no reef was found. There was room between the two crosscuts for the Walhalla shoot on either of these two tracks, but there was little to justify further search for it by driving on them. From all the evidence afforded by the work done on this level, and also from that done from the Eureka Claim, the writer is satisfied that, assuming the shoots were downthrown as believed, the downthrow was to a depth greater than any of the workings so far opened on the lode-series, and consequently that any further search for the downward continuation of the various shoots, if it is to succeed, must be made below the 1,000 ft. level of the Fiery Cross; and, when the wholly problematical question is considered as to the depth at which the stone may “make” again, there is little to induce any thoughtful mining engineer to recommend such search being made.
Whatever chance there may now be of finding further payable reef in the locality would appear to be towards the northern end of the field. The long drive put in by the Welcome United Company from the Boatman’s low level to connect with the old Welcome workings could not have picked up along its course the downward continuation of the Welcome North Block, but, granting that the block lived down, a crosscut from the drive put out to the east from a point about 600 ft. from the junction of the drive with the low level would have struck it, and it is rather difficult to understand why such a crosscut was not made. It is said that a party began the repairing of the low-level tunnel in 1910 with a view to doing this work, but owing to certain mining difficulties had to abandon the effort after spending a good deal of money. It is also rather hard to know why, when the low-level adit was first driven, or when it was later reopened by the Welcome United, an attempt was not made to prospect from it to the north or north-east, with a view to picking up at depth the Specimen Hill shoot. There seems no reason to think otherwise than that this shoot would live down to as great a depth, anyhow, as the Fiery Cross and Welcome shoots. Its upper portion has been badly shattered by faulting, but the earth-movements may not have affected it to any great depth. If Dr. Henderson’s theory is correct—that the shoot belongs to a lode-series lying to the east of Topfer’s line, and has been affected by a south-south-easterly dipping fault—any work done to find it from the horizon of the low-level tunnel would have had to be extended well to the east; but it
