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any sign of lode. It may be, of course, that the shoot does not live down below the point to which it was followed, but if it be taken that the theory of normal faulting as applied to it is to be relied on it is questionable if the crosscut mentioned was carried quite far enough to meet the shoot. At the best, according to such plans as are available, the working only seems to have penetrated to a point about 1½ chains eastward of No. 3 adit, which was scarcely sufficient to prove definitely the non-existence of the shoot on that horizon. Still later, about 1912, the Willis brothers started an adit at an even lower level than the Low-level Tunnel with a view to making a further search for this shoot. This work was subsequently taken over by the Consolidated Goldfields, and the adit was driven a distance considered sufficient to pick up the shoot if it had lived down. Several tracks containing broken quartz were met with and driven on for short distances, but nothing of value was located. If the pitch of the shoot had been to the south, which is improbable, the general pitch of all others in the area being northerly, it is possible that this adit was driven far enough to meet it, but if the pitch was to the north the distance driven was not sufficient to effect its purpose. Again, if the worked part of the shoot was normally faulted, the same doubt suggests itself as in the case of the crosscut from the low level, as to whether the working was sufficiently to the eastward to find the downward continuation of the stone.
CRUSHINGTON GROUP.—SMITH’S LODE-SERIES.
This important series has been named after the prospector who first found gold-bearing quartz on what was subsequently the Wealth of Nations Claim, in 1870. Within a very short time after the discovery a number of claims were pegged out along the line, amongst which were the South Wealth of Nations, the Pandora, No. 2 South Keep-it-Dark, Nil Desperandum, Golden Ledge, Vulcan, Independent, Wealth of Nations, Energetic, Dauntless, and Macedonian.
South Wealth of Nations Mine.—This was the most southerly claim on the line. A company was formed to work it in 1886, and joined with the Pandora and No. 2 South Keep-it-Dark companies to sink a shaft to 280 ft. on the joint boundary of the claims held by the two latter, but no stone was ever found in the claim, and the company ceased work in 1890; and in 1894 its ground was purchased by the No. 2 South Keep-it-Dark Company, and eventually was absorbed, in common with the claims of the other two companies mentioned, by the Keep-it-Dark Company.
Pandora Mine.—This mine adjoined the South Wealth of Nations on the east and the No. 2 South Keep-it-Dark on the South. The company was also registered in 1886. A shoot of stone was found outcropping on the claim, the discovery being made when cutting the Keep-it-Dark water-race. The outcrop was close to the boundary of the No. 2 South Keep-it-Dark Company’s ground, and a winze was sunk on it for 176 ft., 100 ft. of which was on reef averaging 16 in. in width. In 1887 the company joined with the two adjoining companies in putting down the shaft before mentioned and opening a level from it at 280 ft. from surface. This work served to show that very little of the shoot was in the Pandora ground, and in 1890 the company, after taking out such stone as there was, and doing some fruitless prospecting by way of extending the 280 ft. level for several hundred feet into its own ground, ceased operating, and was sold in 1894 to the No. 2 South Keep-it-Dark Company.
