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days. Reef-tracks were found in each company’s ground, and a lot of work in the nature of tunnelling and shaft-sinking was done, but no solid stone was ever located. The Macedonian Claim was absorbed by the Energetic Company in 1879, but the Dauntless, which, by the way, was known for a time as the Undaunted, struggled on for some years longer, and was finally abandoned.
CRUSHINGTON GROUP.—WESTERN LODE-SERIES.
On this line, which is only a few hundred feet west of Smith’s lode-series, Dr. Henderson has placed the Heather Bell and Eclipse Mines, and what is known as the western shoot of the Keep-it-Dark Mine. Regarding the first-mentioned, which lay to the north of the Keep-it-Dark and west of the Independent, very little information is available. No stone was apparently ever won from it, and no record is available as to any work done on it. Much the same applies to the Heather Bell. There is a record of a crushing of 60 tons from which it yielded only 10 oz. gold, but that is all the information at hand concerning it. Probably reef-tracks were found in each claim, but the prospects were not encouraging, and little actual mining was done.
Keep-it-Dark Mine.—This mine was an important producer. In it there were at least three shoots of quartz known as the “Old Dark,” the eastern, and the western. In his “Geological Survey of the Reefton District” Dr. Henderson has placed the eastern shoot on Smith’s lode-series, but, for reasons already stated, the present writer has preferred to deal with all the shoots in the one general description of the mine. The “Old Dark” shoot was undoubtedly on Smith’s line, and was probably the first stone worked on the claim. The first Keep-it-Dark Company was registered on the 2nd March, 1874, but there is reason to believe that before that date work had been done on the claim, and this would almost surely have been on this shoot, and perhaps partly in some of the upper adits on the eastern shoot. The “Old Dark” shoot was about 100 ft. in length, but its width is not known. It had an underlie to the eastward, whereas all the other shoots of the vicinity dipped to the westward, showing that it had been involved in a fault movement. A tunnel put in 120 ft. below the outcrop evidently picked the shoot up, but it must have cut out at that point. It was worked out to the surface, but no work was done on it lower down. A vertical “monkey” shaft was sunk from the tunnel, in which the country came back to the general westerly dip—there must have been some indication of the change on the horizon of the tunnel, as otherwise it is difficult to understand why the shaft was sunk vertically—but no stone was got in it. In the Golden Ledge No. 2 adit there was, however, a little reef a short distance to the south, and this may have represented the downward continuation of the shoot. No records are available as to any crushings from this shoot, but it may safely be assumed that the stone was not of high value, for it is known that the earlier working of the mine gave no satisfactory return to its owners.
The eastern shoot was the most profitable in the claim. Its outcrop was apparently from 5 to 6 chains easterly of the “Old Dark” shoot, and for a time it was worked by several adits, the lowest of which, however, gave only about 180 ft. of backs, and a vertical haulage shaft was soon started from the level of this lowest adit. By 1887 three levels had been opened from this shaft. Plans of these various workings are in existence,
