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carried in to about 1,500 ft., but no more solid stone was met. In 1921 the company ceased operations.
New Creek Reefs.—It was known in 1886 that auriferous quartz reefs occurred in New Creek, about two miles north of the United Alpine Mine, but owing to the inaccessibility of the locality nothing could be done with them at the time. A pack-track was made, however, a year or two later, and shortly afterwards a company known as the Victory was formed to work one of the outcropping reefs. This company drove two adits, the upper about 70 ft. and the lower 220 ft. below the outcrop. A short shoot of stone was picked up in both levels, but with the exception of a small portion of it close under the outcrop it appears to have contained poor values. No record is available as to the tonnage crushed or the gold recovered, but the fact that the company abandoned its claim is sufficient evidence that the stone was not payable. Some years later, about 1911, another company known by the same name made an attempt to work the property. A winze was sunk for about 50 ft. from No. 2 adit, and a drive was put out from it for 40 ft. on a small reef that is said to have assayed well. This company then proposed to put in a third adit, about 230 ft. below No. 2, to test the ground at that depth, but although Government subsidy was promised to assist in carrying out this work the adit was not gone on with, and the company ceased operations. In 1919 a third company, the New Creek Prospecting and Developing Company, was formed to give the mine still another trial. This company commenced the driving of the lower adit proposed by its predecessor, and this was carried in about 500 ft. without meeting the reef-line, but at about 170 ft. from daylight a small reef averaging a little over 1 ft. in width was cut and driven on for 83 ft. It was found to carry values equal to 8 dwt. gold per ton, but was in very hard country. This reef may have represented the downward continuation of the shoot on which the winze from No. 2 adit was sunk, but if so the underlie of the reef would have had to change from easterly to westerly between the two levels. The probability is that the stone was on a parallel line to that worked by the original company. In such a locality and in such hard country 8 dwt. gold would not pay. The company’s money being exhausted by the time this driving was done, it ceased operations, and the claim has lain idle up to the present date. It cannot be said there was much to justify the expenditure by either of the last two companies, and the work done makes it clearly evident that no further attempt to work the property would be warranted.
Numerous other reefs are known to occur in the Lyell district, from some of which samples have occasionally given encouraging values by assay, but very little work has been done on any of them. Unfortunately, no geological survey of the locality has yet been made available, consequently its possibilities are not well known; but there is a belt of greywacke and argillite stretching northward from New Creek to the Mokihinui River within which vigorous prospecting might reveal deposits of economic importance.
Mokihinui River Reefs.— Towards the head of the Mokihinui River auriferous reefs were first found about 1875, and a company known as the Halcyon appears to have been formed shortly after that date to work some of them. A battery was erected, but although the quartz crushed is said to have averaged 1 oz. gold to the ton, operations were not successful, and after expending about £10,000 the company abandoned its holdings. About 1884 some further discoveries of reef were made, close to the old Halcyon ground, and this led to a revival of mining at the place, at least six com-
