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as to the correctness of Dr. Henderson’s theory. If any of these bottom levels, Nos. 12, 13, or 14, had been continued on in the easterly direction the probability is that the lost part of the shoot would have been rediscovered. Should any attempt be made now to locate the shoot it cannot be made from the lower part of the mine, but must be made from the upper part. The vertical height of the downthrow of the worked portion of the shoot cannot now be estimated, but it was probably no great distance, therefore any such attempt would perhaps be more wisely undertaken from the horizon of No. 4 or No. 5 level than from any other part of the old workings.
AJAX GROUP.—ANDERSON’S LODE-SERIES.
This series lies about 45 chains westerly of Walshe’s line. Auriferous stone was first found in it by James Anderson in November, 1870, and two companies, the Anderson’s Creek and the Invincible, took up claims on it, and worked, for a time anyhow, independently of one another. The former company erected a fifteen-stamp battery at Black’s Point, and commenced crushing in December, 1872, while the Invincible started to crush in the following January. No full plans of the old workings are to be found, but it is evident that both companies worked parts of the one ore-shoot, which was developed by means of three adit levels. The shoot was about 300 ft. in length, with an average width of 3 ft., but, as far as can be learned, it was rather badly broken. No definite information is available as to the depth to which it was traced down from the outcrop, but it could not have been far, for by 1875 all the stone in sight had been worked out, and after some unsuccessful prospecting to find its downward continuation the companies collapsed in 1876. The stone is said to have cut out in the bottom workings against a slickensided wall, beyond which it could not be found. In 1878 the mines were reopened and desultory prospecting was carried on till about 1884, but no success was met with. During the times the mines worked, the Anderson’s Creek Company crushed 6,791 tons of quartz for 5,363 oz. gold, valued at £20,781 12s. 6d., and paid £475 in dividends; while the Invincible crushed 564 tons for 675 oz., valued at £2,525, and paid £1,050 in dividends.
The shoot dipped to the eastward—that is, in the opposite direction to most others in the Murray Creek area—and at the bottom is said to have turned upward. There can be no question but that it had been displaced from its original position by faulting, and as the powerful Black’s Point fault is only a short distance away Dr. Henderson was of opinion that this dislocation had probably been caused by one of its subsidiary fault movements. In the present writer’s belief the available evidence seems to indicate the probability that the shoot as originally situated conformed to the general westerly dip of the other shoots of the locality, the easterly dip revealed in the old workings being accounted for by distortion of the earth-block containing the stone that was worked, due to the faulting. In this case the fault would have been normal, a theory that seems to be confirmed by the upward turning of the shoot where it cut out, and the downward continuation of the stone should therefore have been discoverable to the eastward of the old workings. In later years several attempts were made without success to pick it up at greater depth. The Consolidated Goldfields Company, for instance, in 1898 or 1899 put out a crosscut from the Inangahua low-level adit for about 1,300 ft. to come under the Anderson’s Creek workings, without locating
