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making 260 ft. in all from the portal, but still no stone was intersected. Discouraged by the unsatisfactory result of this work, the syndicate abandoned its option. The prospectors then formed the Alexander Gold-mining Syndicate, and resumed active prospecting. A shaft was sunk from the outcrop, alongside the reef, in which it was found that the stone went down almost vertically for 35 ft. and then cut out, the dip of the country at the same time altering from the vertical to nearly a horizontal direction. In the adit the same almost horizontal dip of the strata was noted, making it clearly evident that the country had been moved and badly crushed, and that the Bull reef was merely a floater. Nevertheless the syndicate put in another adit, 130 ft. below No. 1, and drove it for 400 ft. in a south-south-easterly direction, then crosscut from it, at a point 325 ft. from the portal, towards the west—that is, across the strike of the quartz on the surface, for a little over 200 ft. From near the end of the drive a branch drive was also put in almost due south for 100 ft., but in none of these workings was any reef found. In this adit the strata straightened up somewhat, with a flat dip to the eastward, but all the ground penetrated was still evidently moved and crushed. A No. 3 adit was also started, 300 ft. below No. 2, and about a similar distance northerly from the mouth of the latter, on a small outcrop of quartz; but this adit was not persevered with far, owing to the quartz cutting out. Realizing now that it was useless to seek further in this immediate vicinity for the downward continuation of the Bull reef, the syndicate directed attention to investigation of the surface to the east and north-east of the original find, and in 1923 located an outcrop about 20 chains in the latter direction. This outcrop was traceable on the surface for about 3 chains, and the quartz from all parts of it prospected well, but it was lying horizontally. In order to test it, a drive was put in easterly under the flatly-disposed stone, and when this had been extended for 20 ft. it was found that the reef, which was 5 ft. wide, turned over and went down nearly vertically. An adit was next started to cut the reef at 130 ft. below the outcrop, but, as in the case of the Bull reef, it failed to locate the reef, although it was extended a much greater distance than should have been necessary to intersect it. To better determine what had happened to the reef, a return was made to the outcrop, and a winze was sunk inside the first short upper adit, which made connection with the lower (No. 2) adit and served to show that the reef lived down to within about 9 ft. of the back of the adit. The conclusion then formed was that the quartz was in the form of a lens with a flat northerly pitch. An intermediate level was then opened on the stone, about 40 ft. above No. 2 adit, which, when driven north-east and southwest, showed the lens at this depth to be 140 ft. in length. A five-stamp battery was erected, well up the face of the hill and about 200 ft. below the mouth of No. 2 adit, and crushing was commenced towards the end of 1924. For driving this plant electric power was used, the current being generated by a small hydro installation on the Alexander River. The first clean-up yielded 121 oz. 17 dwt. gold, by amalgamation only, from 60 tons of quartz. Crushing was then carried on intermittently till the end of February, 1926; but owing to many breakdowns in the plant, especially in the electrical part, the total quartz crushed only amounted to 659 tons, which, however, yielded 1,646 oz. gold, equal to nearly 2½ oz. per ton, all recovered by amalgamation only. In the meantime a drive had been put in northerly from No. 2 adit to try and pick up the lens on its pitch to the north. It was expected that very few feet of driving would effect this purpose, but the drive had to be extended 80 ft. before the stone was met,
