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this block, and partially overlapping it, was what was termed the Antimony Block, about 180 ft. in length. The mine-workings proper of the Golden Treasure consisted mainly of three levels. Two of these were adits, and the third was driven from the bottom of a vertical shaft 308 ft. in depth, the collar of which was 50 ft. above the upper or main adit. In the latter adit the old Golden Treasure Company worked both the North and Antimony blocks, and these appear also to have been picked up in the lower adit, but in the shaft level neither of them was met with. H. A. Gordon[1] mentions, however, that no prospecting was done for them on that level, owing to want of funds.
The Golden Treasure Extended Company made a determined effort to bring the mine to a payable position, and actually succeeded in paying £900 in dividends; but the great amount of antimony present in the stone and the difficulty of treating it proved too great a handicap. Various records serve to show that the antimony sulphide contained on an average about 1½ oz. gold to the ton, and gold could be seen in it, and there were evidently parts of the mine where the gold value was much higher. In the Mines Reports for 1896 (p. 116) it is stated that a parcel of 5 tons sent for treatment to Freiberg, in Germany, gave a return of £23 per ton. The company itself made an effort to treat this antimonial ore by crushing and running the pulp over blankets, but only succeeded in recovering about 5 dwt. gold per ton from it. The lodes varied from 2 ft. to 10 ft. in width, and it is mentioned by Inspector of Mines Gow that in places they consisted of a little quartz and a large body of antimony-ore, much of the latter having to be mined to get out the quartz. The antimony-ore, which contained from 30 to 50 per cent. pure antimony, was stowed away in the workings in the hope of some day finding a buyer for it.
The Golden Treasure Extended Company carried on till 1892, when it ceased operations. In the following year the mine was let on tribute, and for several years a little work was done without satisfactory results. In 1898 the Anglo-Continental Gold-mining Syndicate took the property over, and reopened some of the workings, but the results of its operations were not encouraging, for it soon ceased work, and in 1901 the claims passed into the hands of the Consolidated Goldfields, Ltd., which removed the winding-engine to the Energetic Mine. In 1906 the claim was surrendered, but was taken up by the Wellington Mines Syndicate, which did a little further prospecting without success, and eventually, in 1911, the claim passed to the Murray Creek Mines. The latter company did no work on it, and it has practically lain idle ever since.
During the full period that mining was carried on, the total ore crushed amounted, as far as can now be estimated, to 9,423 tons, which yielded 5,696 oz. gold, worth approximately £23,042 18s. 8d., and paid in dividends £4,300.
Westland Mine.—Northward of the principal workings of the Golden Treasure were those of the Westland Claim, from which one of the earliest parcels of ore crushed in the district was taken. The old Westland Company erected a small battery in Murray Creek in the early part of 1872, and in July of the same year crushed its first quartz, 80 tons, which yielded 60 oz. gold. In 1875 the claim became part of the Golden Treasure holding, and the shoot of stone in it was again worked for a short time, but the results were not payable.
- ↑ Mines Reps., 1896, C.–3, p. 116.
