-works
were taken south and east from the bottom level (1,700 feet) of the
Egerton shaft, or lower. According to this, only one of a great system
of '' wing makes " of quartz (it is nothing else) has received
attention, returning remarkable richness from its outcrop to a depth of
about 850 feet, below which point it has not been followed ; and it is
a question whether or not the stone met with in the 1,108-ft. level is
identical with it. The whole line of this golden deposit is known as
the liose shoot of gold, and persons who participated in its dividend
have been heard to remark—" If the company could only pick up this
wonderful shoot at lower levels, things would soon be all right again."
As remarked in former reports, and in this one, more than once, the
line of the deposition of gold in lode structure of this sort is in
exact accordance with the line of the contact of slate drainage with
the floor of obstruction. I noticed along the line of this favoured
floor wide extents of gold-slate, in which are innumerable lines of
drainage, from the width of a sheet of paper, in some instances, to
from 1 inch to 1 foot in others. In fact, the whole of this wing
formation, and the vertical formation on its western side, are, as far
as concerns the length of its most golden part, in a great channel made
up of many minor lines of gold drainage. Down on its pitch to the
850-ft. level this wing-like " filter pack " of quartz keeps well in
the line of slate drainage, and no doubt it will be found in it to
further depths. Mr. William Josephs, late manager of the Black Horse
Company, is said to have advised driving from the 1,700-ft. level of
the late Egerton Company's main shaft south to a point immediately
under the works of the Sister Rose shaft, in which the wing gold was
last met with and mined. This was, as stated, at about 850 feet below
the surface, and is a point where the wing was displaced by a shift on
one of the many breaks which occur in parallel order in the Egerton
Company's ground. Mr. Cowper, the present manager, is now engaged
driving for the line of this break from the 1,108-ft. level in the hope
of meeting with the downward continuation of the wing-stone under it.
He lias between 300 and 400 feet to drive before he meets with the
break, and, if he happens on stone there, the wing of stone near the
main shaft workings in this 1,108-ft. level can hardly be a
continuation downward of it. If, at the point he is going for, it
proves as golden as in its higher stretches, there is a, good time in
store for the company in following it up from the 1,700-ft. level of
the main shaft. If, on the other hand, the wing of stone in the
1,108-ft. level represents the downward part of this famous wing, then
it has been extended at its lower parts in country to the west of the
line of main drainage in the gold-slate, and is, accordingly, poor in
gold. The management should, in my opinion, start works to the south
from the bottom of the main shaft. I note by the reports from Mr. W.
Josephs, when in charge of the Egerton Company's mine, just previous to
its amalgamation with the Black Horse Company, that he put a cross-cut
out east from the 1,700-ft. level for about 300 feet. In doing so he
passed through a belt of dark " greasy " slate highly charged with
sulphide and carbon, and containing a main channel of drainage in the
form of a lode varying in width from 6 inches or so to 4 feet or 5
feet. This
