50
from the lode, and the return could not have been satisfactory, for no further work was done at the time.
On the Langdon’s Extended Claim, on which the antimony lode occurred, another formation known as Langdon’s Reef was found at about the same time, but outcropping 400 ft. lower down the hillside. This reef was described by Hector[1] as showing a solid ledge of white quartz 3 ft. to 11 ft. wide, a sample from which, assayed by Skey[2], yielded gold at the rate of 69 oz. 3 dwt. 12 gr. per ton. In 1883 Alexander McKay[3], who visited the reefs in that year, reported that samples from this reef yielded on assay at the rate of 19 dwt. 12 gr. gold per ton. No more work seems to have been done on the reef than on the antimony lode, and the prospects could not have been very encouraging, for nothing in the way of active mining was done on the field till 1894, when the Curtis brothers took a tribute over Langdon’s Extended Claim, known by this time as the Julian Claim. While excavating for a tram-line they proposed laying down, to carry stone from the Julian Claim to a small one-head battery they had erected, they discovered a boulder of quartz showing good gold. From the appearance of the shoad it had not travelled far, so a search was at once started to trace its place of origin, with the result that in a short time the party found a lode a short distance up the hill and outside the Julian ground. The Curtis brothers at once pegged out a claim (since known as the Victory) covering the find. Surface prospecting soon showed that the reef ran nearly east and west across the lower part of the claim. An adit was started, which cut the reef at 70 ft. in. When driven on the stone varied from 1 ft. 6in. to 3 ft. in width, and at one point, where several leaders had junctioned with it, is said to have reached a width of 4 ft. Three tons of stone were taken out, and treated in the one-stamp battery previously mentioned, with the result that 44 oz. gold were obtained. This encouraging yield led the owners to at once improve on their crushing plant, and a five-stamp battery was purchased from the Specimen Hill Company at Reefton, and transported to the mine, where it was erected in Langdon’s Creek.
In 1895 and 1896 an attempt was made to float the Julian, Victory, and several other claims adjoining into one big company in London, but the promotor found when in England that he would have to modify the offers he had made to the property-holders, and as the new terms were unacceptable to the Curtis brothers the flotation fell through.
In the meantime, development work on the Victory showed that in No. 1 adit the shoot of gold-bearing stone was about 134 ft. long, averaging between 18 in. and 24 in. in width. From the adit a winze was sunk to a depth of 93 ft., and No. 2 adit was driven to meet it. The reef was then all stoped out from No. 2 level to the surface, some 609 tons being mined and crushed for a yield of 1,159 oz. 7 dwt. gold, valued at £5,564 11s. 3d. In 1898, the stone having been practically exhausted, an amalgamation of the Julian and Victory Companies was arranged, under the title of the Julian Gold-mining Company; and as the water was said to be too heavy to permit of sinking below No. 2 level a start was made to put in a third adit about 200 ft. below the latter. This adit was carried in about 200 ft. when the work was abandoned owing to the company’s funds being used up.
