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Victoria Mine.—The claim of the old Victoria Gold-mining Company was next in succession to the northward from the Westland. It was on this claim that Fred Westfield is said to have found auriferous quartz at about the same time as Kelly found it on the Golden Treasure. From the time of its discovery the shoot of stone was energetically worked. The original company drove three adit levels on it, which proved the shoot to be about 200 ft. long and up to 6 ft. in width. The first crushing from it was, like all the others from the locality, put through the Westland Company’s battery. This was in 1872; and mining and crushing were carried on regularly till 1879, during which period 2,027 tons were treated for a return of 1,279 oz. gold, an average of 12·6 dwt. per ton. A further 342 oz. gold were recovered in 1880, but, as the tonnage crushed for that year is not definitely known, this has not been taken into consideration in arriving at the average values. The stone above No. 3 adit having been by this time exhausted, the mine was practically abandoned, and little was done on it till 1894, when Messrs. Knight and party, who held the claim on tribute from that year till 1896, reopened the old levels, and also drove an adit at a higher level than the Victoria No. 1, in which they located a block of stone. This party, during the time it worked the ground, mined 925 tons of quartz, which was crushed for a yield of 473 oz. gold, an average of 10·22 dwt. per ton. From the termination of this tribute the claim lay idle again till 1903, when Mr. P. N. Kingswell, who had acquired it a year or so previously, extended the No. 4 Inglewood adit (originally driven by the Phoenix Gold-mining Company) into the Victoria ground. This adit was only 40 ft. below the old No. 3 Victoria adit, but it enabled a further quantity of stone to be mined from the Victoria shoot between 1903 and 1907. What the exact amount of this stone was is, however, not now ascertainable, the figures being lumped in the returns with those dealing with the Phoenix and Inglewood shoots, which were both operated on by Mr. Kingswell during those years, but the developments are said not to have been satisfactory. In 1908 the claim, together with that held by the other companies mentioned, came into the hands of a Reefton syndicate, which disposed of it to the Wellington Mines Syndicate, which merged in the following year into the New Murray Creek Gold-mining Company. This latter company thereafter pursued a vigorous policy of development, pushing the No. 5 Inglewood adit (otherwise known as the Battery level), the first portion of which was driven conjointly by the Inglewood and Phoenix Companies, into the Victoria shoot, and sinking a three-compartment main working-shaft. This shaft, which was sunk to a depth of 540 ft., had its collar on the same level as the portal of No. 4 Inglewood adit. At the depth of 220 ft. it was connected with the battery level, and two further levels, Nos. 6 and 7, were opened from it at 400 ft. and 540 ft. respectively from the shaft-collar. Between Nos. 4 and 5 levels the shoot was broken up by faulting, but on Nos. 6 and 7 levels being extended to the Victoria ground the shoot was picked up in both of them and was found to be about 200 ft. longer than it appeared to be in the surface adits. On these lower levels it was about 400 ft. in length. The company started crushing operations in 1914, and continued them till about the end of 1919, during which time 30,631 tons of quartz were treated for a yield of 19,072 oz. 8 dwt. gold, an average of 12·45 dwt. per ton. The value of the gold was £75,850 16s. 4d. As neither the Inglewood nor Phoenix shoots had been picked up on Nos. 6 or 7 levels, the whole of this quartz came from the Victoria shoot, and the bulk of it from
