9
poor return from the company’s own treatment plant surprised and perplexed all parties concerned. The stone was treated in a number of parcels, and with regard to the first put through the battery H. A. Gordon remarks[1] that no one who had prospected the quartz taken out would have anticipated this small yield. The general opinion seemed to have been that in some way a goodly portion of the gold was being lost. The company’s officials evidently attributed it to unsuitability of the plant, but H. A. Gordon, in his report just previously referred to, expressed the opinion that it was questionable if the company had in its employ any one who understood properly the system of extracting gold from the ore by amalgamation and battery treatment. A singular point about the matter was that when putting the stone through the battery in parcels it was noted that as good a return of gold was got from what was looked upon as the poorest material as from the stone that showed gold freely.
To further perplex the management, the results of five parcels of the quartz sent to Australia and London showed that it contained much better values than could be recovered at the mine, and that the values were payable. A few tons of ore had been left in the bins, and of this two separate parcels of 6 tons each were sent to Sydney. The first parcel on being treated yielded 8 dwt. 8 gr., and the second 15 dwt. gold per ton. The three other parcels, of 10 cwt. each, were despatched to London, and are said to have yielded respectively 16 dwt. 6 gr., 14 dwt. 19 gr., and 10 dwt. 12·7 gr. per ton. The average yield for the five parcels was thus 12 dwt. 23 gr. gold per ton, which would have been payable. In the face of these results it certainly seemed as if the battery was losing a good deal of the gold, and with a view to obtaining a better recovery a small cyaniding plant was erected, and, to assure this being run in the proper way, the services of one of the Cassel Company’s men were secured. A certain amount of tailings was put through this plant, but the available records are not at all clear as to the results achieved. According to the Mines Reports for 1895 (p. 70) 25 tons of quartz were crushed for the previous year for a yield of 14 oz. gold, equal to 11 dwt. per ton; and, seeing that no yield approaching this in value had previously been got from the stone, it would seem safe to assume that the quantity of quartz mentioned was actually mined, crushed, and cyanided to obtain it. On the other hand, the same report mentions that Mr. Turner, the company’s manager, had informed the Assistant Inspector of Mines, N. D. Cochrane, that 175 tons either of stone crushed or of tailings had been treated by the cyanide process for a return of only 16 oz. gold. It is possible that these differing results were from two separate tests that were made; but, be this as it may, after a very brief test with the cyanide plant the company ceased operations, and very little further work was done on the field. In 1906 it was reported that a miner named Thomas had succeeded in tracing the reef system down the western, or Mahakapawa, side of the range, getting good surface prospects; and in the following year a small party was engaged in cleaning out the old Kapai workings; but this seems to have been all the further prospecting done in the locality.
In his annual report for 1895, Inspecting Engineer of Mines, H. A. Gordon, states that when visiting the mines some eighteen months previously, in company with Mr. R. A. F. Murray, Government Geologist, Victoria, and Mr. Alex. McKay, Mining Geologist, his impression was that working the property would prove a failure. This opinion may have been well founded, but it
- ↑ Mines Reps., 1893, p. 77.
