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tions indicated should not need to be very deep to reach the reef-line, as the point of fracture of the original line was evidently between No. 7 level and the present bed of Devil’s Creek in its upper part, and the total distance vertically between these two horizons may be approximated at only about 400 ft.
The lode, if located beyond the fault, would doubtless be in the usual lensoid form, but the lenses would be more regular than in the shattered worked portion of the mine; nevertheless any bores put down would need to be placed in such a way that at no point would they be more than 200 ft. apart, to ensure that they would not miss the lenses.
Most of the blocks of ore worked carried fair gold down to where they disappeared against the fault, so it is not unreasonable to think that if their downward extensions were located the stone would continue to have much the same values.
Although the Progress Mines, Ltd., held several large claims to the south of the main workings, comparatively little prospecting seems to have been done on them, particularly along what may be considered the strike of the main fault, the surface indication of which is the gorge of the upper part of Devil’s Creek and of Fossicker’s Creek. Misled by the east-and-west strike of the principal ore-bodies at the surface, the opinion for years seems to have been that if any extension of the lode-line was to be picked up it would be in a direction varying from east to south-east of those ore-bodies, hence whatever search was made was in that general line. In view, however, of the information furnished by the lower levels of the mine it is possible that the original strike of the lode was much more nearly north and south, consequently a certain amount of close surface investigation may even now be justified in the very rough country in a more direct southerly line from “B” shaft.
AULD CREEK GROUP.—RANFT’S LODE-SERIES.
The line, so named by Dr. Henderson after Theodor Ranft, who, with William Falla, first prospected it in the early “seventies,” lies to the northward of the Globe-Progress series, and may be the continuation of it in that direction. Several claims were pegged out on it, among them the Fraternal and the Bonanza, but the latter is the only one calling for any special mention. Very little work was done on any of the claims for some years after the first discovery, but about 1882 the existence of a fair market for antimony, of which the outcrops contained a large percentage, led to some active work being done on some of them. The antimony was not, however, in sufficient quantity, nor was the gold content high enough, to warrant the erection of treatment plant, and operations ceased again. In 1908 some further work was done, this time mainly on the Bonanza. A prospecting-shaft (locally “winze”) was sunk on a reef averaging about 8 ft. in width to a depth of 90 ft., for which distance the gold values in the ore are said to have averaged 15 dwt. per ton. A drive appears also to have been put in on the reef for 200 ft. at a depth of 400 ft. below the outcrop. The owners are reported, however, to have been greatly hampered at the time by litigation, and also by regulations restricting mining on the area, which was within the reserve from which the domestic supply of water for Reefton township is drawn, with the result that prospecting operations were once more suspended. About 1914 another attempt was made to do something with the claim. The old 200 ft. drive was repaired and extended a further
