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removing the battery to a new site there where water-power could be used for driving the mill in place of steam-power. In view, however, of the costliness of the proposed adit, which would have had to be about 3,300 ft. in length, and of the further cost of sinking the shaft and developing the shoot on lower levels, combined with the fact that under No. 7 level two winzes had shown the shoot to be again broken up by faulting, the application was not entertained. The company then went into liquidation and the mine and plant were disposed of to a small syndicate, which in turn sold it to a new company, which, the writer understands, intends making an effort to succeed where its predecessors failed. During the time the property was held by the syndicate referred to, a tribute party of four men, led by G. Kremmer, opened out on some stone left by the former company under No. 4 adit, and crushed 161 tons for 111 oz. 6 dwt. 4 gr. gold, valued at £425 2s. 8d. Including this crushing, the quartz which it is definitely known came from the Victoria shoot since the start of operations amounted to 33,744 tons, which yielded 20,935 oz. 14 dwt. 4gr. gold, valued at £83,284, but the only dividend paid was the small distribution of £600 in 1880.
Phoenix Mine.—The old Phoenix Claim was next to the Victoria in a northerly direction, and gold-bearing reef was found in it very shortly after the discovery of reef in the latter. The first stone from it was crushed at the Westland Company’s battery in 1874, and during that and the following year some good returns were got. The block of ore in the claim was only about 120 ft. in length, with an average width of 3 ft. In exploiting it four adits were driven, the lowest known as the Inglewood No. 4, being driven conjointly by the Phoenix and Inglewood Companies. The last-mentioned level was about 400 ft. below the reef outcrop, and the company mined all the stone down to it. No detailed account of the crushings is available, but it is known that up till March, 1886, the company sent to the battery 2,190 tons of quartz, which yielded 2,918 oz. gold, valued at £11,272 11s. 10d., out of which £4,533 6s. was paid in dividends. This would serve to show that the stone averaged over 26 dwt. gold per ton. Very little, if any, quartz appears to have been mined from the claim for some years after 1886, but in 1887 the company joined with the Inglewood Company in driving No. 5 adit, which in the following year had reached the Inglewood shoot. The adit was not, however, carried far enough to reach the Phoenix shoot, and in 1889 the Phoenix Company merged with the other, thereby losing its identity. The Inglewood Company continued to stope the quartz from its own shoot, but for some inexplicable reason seems to have made no effort to locate the Phoenix shoot on that level, and when it had exhausted the stone from the Inglewood shoot did little work. In 1901 Mr. P. N. Kingswell purchased the Victoria, Phoenix, and Inglewood Claims, and extended No. 5 adit to the Phoenix shoot, which he subsequently stoped up to No. 4 audit. He also sank a winze on the shoot for about 80 ft. below No. 5 adit, at which depth stone pinched out. The quartz showing the winze was then taken out up to No. 5 level. What tonnage was won from the shoot on this occasion there is now no means of telling definitely. During the six or seven years that he held the properties the records show that Mr. Kingswell mined and crushed 6,184 tons for a yield of 4,815 oz. gold, but it is known that some small portion of this tonnage came from the Victoria shoot on Nos. 2 and 4 adits; the figures relating to output from the different parts of the property having been lumped together, the respective quotas cannot now be determined. It is certain, however, that as far down as the Phoenix shoot was mined
