Quartz Reefs of the West Coast Mining District, New Zealand/Marlborough Province
QUARTZ REEFS OF THE WEST COAST
MINING DISTRICT.
MARLBOROUGH PROVINCE.
This province has not been fortunate as yet in finding within its boundaries any quartz-mines of important value, although in at least three localities—the Waikakaho, the Wairau River, and the Wakamarina River—auriferous reefs have been discovered and developed to a considerable extent. On the first-mentioned two fields active quartz-mining has ceased for some years, but a little is still carried on at the Wakamarina. Some description of these various fields may prove of interest.
WAIKAKAHO FIELD.
The discovery, in 1899, of gold-bearing stone on a saddle between the heads of the Mahakipawa and Waikakaho Creeks caused a good deal of stir in the province, and for a time it looked as if a very promising new field had been found. Within a short time about forty licensed holdings were applied for, but on the greatest number of these little work was ever done. Gold-bearing reefs were prospected in what were known as the Mahakipawa, Kapai, Waikakaho, and Southern Cross holdings. The first-named was at the head of the right-hand branch of Mahakipawa Creek, on the Mahakipawa side of the saddle. The Kapai holding was on the saddle, and adjoining the former. The Waikakaho holding adjoined the Kapai, on the Waikakaho fall of the range, with the Southern Cross in immediate contiguity to the south. Two strong parallel reefs, about 120 ft. apart and striking in a general north-easterly direction, traversed these holdings, and in at least one of them a third parallel reef or leader seems to have been disclosed. There is some uncertainty as to the dip of these formations, various reports dealing with the point being contradictory, but H. A. Gordon mentions[1] that it was south-westerly at an inclination of about 1 in 2, while the general dip of the adjoining rock was north-easterly. This description seems to be the correct one, and would indicate that the reefs cut across the strata and were thus true fissure deposits which, from their very nature, might be expected to live down to considerable depth.
No plans of the workings are available, but the annual reports of the Mines Department show that quite a lot of development work was done on the various properties, and that the prospects were most encouraging. On the Mahakipawa holding much trenching was done on the main outcrop, and a winze was sunk on it to 76 ft. in stone averaging 3 ft. in width. The quartz from outcrop and winze is said to have shown gold so freely that the manager estimated it would yield from 4 oz. to 5 oz. per ton. An adit level was then started to cut the reef about 300 ft. in and 120 ft. under the outcrop, but as it was extended to 400 ft. without finding stone it would appear that faulting had at this point caused serious displacement of the reef.
On the Kapai holding three parallel reefs or leaders were located. Two of them were very narrow, but a winze sunk on one to 30 ft. showed that it carried good gold-values. The other was only trenched, but is said also to have shown fair prospects. The third reef was up to 9 ft. wide in places on the surface, where it is reported to have shown gold freely. An adit was put in on this reef, to give 155 ft. of backs, and was driven along the reef for about 160 ft., the stone averaging at this depth 3 ft. in width.
On the Waikakaho claim three levels were driven. The upper adit, 185 ft. below the outcrop, was driven on reef for 360 ft. No. 2 adit, 235 ft. below No. 1, was carried in 375 ft., of which 200 ft. was on stone. No. 3 adit, 159 ft. under No. 3, was driven 160ft. According to the Mines Reports of 1890, the reef at the mouth of No. 1 adit was 6 ft. wide, but for the 250 ft. driven on averaged from 2 ft. 6 in. to 3ft., and the stone was highly mineralized and showed gold all through. Where struck at the end of the crosscut in No. 2 adit the reef is said to have been 8 ft. in width, but after being driven on for 200 ft. diminished to 4 ft. 6in. The stone in this level did not show so much gold as in the upper level, but in constructing a pass up to No. 1 good gold-bearing stone was met at 50 ft. up. In driving the crosscut to intersect the main reef, another reef, 6 ft. wide, was cut, which showed a little gold, but was not driven on, the immediate object of the work being to pick up a reef that outcropped at surface. In No. 3 adit the second reef mentioned seems also to have been intersected.
In the Southern Cross workings a reef found at surface was sunk on for 35 ft., and an adit was started 160 ft. below the outcrop to pick it up at that depth. Nothing was found in this adit; but eventually, in 1891, in driving a crosscut from it, a reef from 18 in. to 2 ft. wide was met with, which, according to the Mines Reports for that year, showed gold freely.
Representative samples taken from time to time and sent away for assay are said to have given results equal to 2 oz. 15 dwt. gold per ton in the Kapai stone, and 1 oz. 10 dwt. in the Mahakipawa stone.
By the end of 1890 about 1,000 tons of quartz was at grass from the various claims, and with regard to this the Mining Inspector remarks that it showed good prospects. The Warden's reports were also very optimistic, and the owners seem to have been most confident of getting good values. In 1891 the Mahakipawa, Lucky Hit, Kapai, and Waikakaho claims were taken over by a company known as the Ravenswood Gold-mining Company, of London, which carried on vigorous prospecting, and was so satisfied with the promise of the property that it proceeded to erect a twenty-stamp battery and an aerial tramway several miles in length. This plant was completed in 1892, and crushing was commenced, but, unfortunately, the high hopes that had been entertained were destined to be destroyed. Some 950 tons of quartz from the different workings were put through for a yield by amalgamation of 112 oz. 10 dwt. gold, equal to only a little over 2 dwt. per ton. Seeing that gold was visible so freely in the stone, and that samples of the ore sent to the Cassel Company were found payable for working, this 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[2] 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 was given expression to after the company had closed down, which somewhat lessens its value. It is quite likely that neither the reefs nor the values in the stone ever really showed the promise early reports would lead a reader to think they did, and that no method of mining or treatment would have given more satisfactory results; but in view of all the circumstances some slight doubt is left as to whether the field as a whole received as full a testing as it might have had.
WAIRAU RIVER FIELD.
What may be described as the Wairau River field covers an area drained by Top Valley and Armchair Creeks, which have their source in a range separating the Wairau Valley from the Wakamarina Valley and flow northerly into the former.
A number of auriferous quartz reefs were located in it, upon which much development work was done, but the results were not very satisfactory, the average value of the stone being too low to admit of any profit being made. The first discovery seems to have been made near the head of Top Valley Creek about 1889, when a reef was found outcropping on an elevated terrace. The Jubilee Gold-mining Company was formed to work this, and it erected a ten-head battery of very primitive construction, and put a number of test crushings through from the outcrops, with results that seemed to show payable values in the quartz. A commencement was then made to open the reef up systematically. Only very incomplete plans of the workings are available, but they serve to show that an adit cross-cut was first run in to cut the reef at 125 ft. This was followed by the putting-in of another adit to cut the formation at 160 ft., and up to November, 1900, when operations were suspended for a time, the reef had been driven on in this last level for 60 ft. north and 30 ft. south, and a connection made through to the surface for ventilation. In the following year work was resumed, but was confined to extending No. 2 adit, where values were evidently developed sufficiently encouraging to stimulate the management to materially improve the crushing facilities at the mine, notably by installing water-power in place of steam-power for driving the battery. Operations then continued steadily for several years.
In the meantime several other small mines were opened up in the same locality. One of these was known as the Wellington, owned by the Wellington Syndicate. It may here be remarked that this particular period of New Zealand history was one in which the carrying-on of mining effort had to depend on small-syndicate-financing, very little money coming from outside the colony for the purpose, with the result that many small mines that were prospected were tested but very indifferently. The funds of the syndicates were usually strictly limited, and unless good values were struck almost from the start the available money was soon used up, and operations came to an end. Further, in many cases it was impossible to carry out development necessary to prove the value of a find definitely, so the funds in hand were often spent in futile and unnecessary work. The Wellington Syndicate was evidently similar to scores of others formed at the time.
The Wellington Mine was situated on the Jubilee Range, about a mile and a half up-stream from the Jubilee battery. A strong outcrop was found, on which a winze was sunk to a depth of 35 ft., the reef proving to be from 2 ft. to 3ft. in width. Later on, two adits were driven on the stone, the upper of which cut the reef 50 ft. below the outcrop, and the other about 115 ft. still lower. Connection was made between the adits. A ten-stamp battery was erected, but there is no record of any stone having been crushed in it.
Another mine was the Luck at Last. In this a drive was put in on a large formation, but the stone was found to be of too low grade to pay for working.
Other mines were known as the Duke of Cornwall and the Baden Powell. In the former, four shallow crosscuts were made through the cap of a reef, and a winze was sunk to 53 ft. on stone said to average 4 ft. in width. From the latter a small crushing was taken out in 1903 from shallow workings, but the result was so unfavourable that the syndicate abandoned the round. No crushing, as far as can be learned, was made of stone from the Duke of Cornwall.
In 1905 a reconstruction of the Jubilee, Luck at Last, and Wellington Syndicates took place, the three being amalgamated under the title “Wairau Gold-mining Company.” This new company concentrated all its efforts on the Jubilee Mine. By this time the small reef on which all the work so far had been done had been practically stoped from No. 2 adit to the surface. An effort was therefore made to extend No. 2 adit a further 1,100 ft., making 1,260 ft. in all from the portal, to cut a large formation outcropping to the westward. While this work was being pushed ahead, the stoping of such quartz as remained above the adit was taken over on tribute by the manager, Linstrom. Another adit was also put in to develop a small reef found 225 ft. below No. 2 level, and a crushing was taken from it. No stone was crushed after 1908, but, in a desultory way, No. 2 adit was continued towards the western reef. What distance this adit finally reached there is no record to show, but Inspector of Mines Whitley reported in 1910 that it had reached 800 ft. In the succeeding years till 1913 some further advance was made that would probably bring the total length driven to about 1,000 ft. In any case, the western reef does not seem to have been reached.
The Jubilee Mine is the only one in connection with which the figures are available as to crushings, 3,673 tons of quartz having been treated, for a yield of 1,187 oz. 0 dwt. 17 gr. gold, valued at £4,182 19s. 2d.
Tasman’s Choice Mine.—Somewhere about 1909 or 1910 a good deal of work was done on another reef near the head of Armchair Creek, the right-hand branch of Top Valley Creek. A fairly strong reef was traceable on the surface for a considerable distance—probably 30 chains. Three shafts were sunk on it, to 30 ft., 40 ft., and 89 ft. respectively, following the reef on a rather flat underlay, and an adit was driven which connected with the bottom of the shallowest shaft. Throughout these workings the reef averaged about 2 ft. 6 in. to 3 ft. in width, but the stone was not solid all the way, having a tendency for considerable distances to split up into a series of stringers of quartz banded with country rock. At 86 ft. below the adit referred to another was started, which should have given about 250 ft. of backs at the deepest shaft. This adit was carried in as a crosscut for 153 ft., and needed to be driven a further 90 ft. or so to reach the reef.
In 1922 an attempt was made to float a company, to be known as the Tasman’s Choice Gold-mining Company, Ltd., for the purpose of further developing the reef, but the flotation apparently fell through for lack of support. In the prospectus issued at the time statements were made that values up to £35 5s. had been got in the stone, but the average value was estimated to be £2 14s. 6d. per ton. It is possible, and likely, that in parts the reef carried fair values, but when visiting the mine in the early part of 1924 the present writer took a few samples from various portions of the workings, none of which on being assayed gave more than the barest traces of gold.
Mount Patriarch Reef.—About 1907 a party of working-miners opened up a reef in the vicinity of Mount Patriarch, about twelve miles higher up the Wairau River than Top Valley Creek, and forty-five miles by road from Blenheim. A shaft was sunk on the outcrop for 40 ft. on reef said to have averaged from 3 ft. to 4 ft. wide. A crosscut adit was also driven, at about the level of the bottom of the shaft, which intersected the reef at 127 ft., from which point the stone was driven on for 57 ft. In this working the reef was 3 ft. in width, and is described as being of a crumbly nature, very easily broken. Owing to the party’s funds becoming exhausted, operations were suspended at this juncture, and, despite the fact that a number of samples taken from various parts of the reef by Inspector of Mines A. W. Richards were said to have shown values in gold equal to from £6 to £8 per ton, no more work was done on the mine for several years.
In 1909, as a result of an interview between members of the party and the then Minister of Mines, a subsidy was granted to assist in the putting-in of another adit, 60 ft. below No. 1, to test the reef to that depth, but the party did not avail itself of this grant. Instead, it erected a small three-stamp battery, which was of little use for anything but purely testing purposes, and having once more exhausted its finances in the purchase and installation of this primitive plant it again ceased operations, and nothing has since been done on the reef. If the values as revealed by the assays of the samples taken by Inspector Richards are to be relied on, it would look as if this prospect might deserve some further examination.
WAKAMARINA RIVER FIELD.
The name of the Wakamarina Diggings is well known as that of one of the rich alluvial fields of the early days of New Zealand mining. Gold was found there first about 1860, and a large population was quickly drawn to the locality. Owing to the gold being mainly confined to the narrow river-bed, the field did not last long, being practically worked out by 1865. During the intervening years, however, it is known that approximately 33,000 oz. of gold, valued at £130,000, were exported, and this only represented part of the actual recoveries, for many miners are said to have taken their winnings away with them. Much of the gold is reported to have been of specimen character—that is to say, it had more or less quartz adhering to it; but the miners of those days do not seem to have been interested in looking for quartz reefs, and apparently searched but little for them. Consequently it was not till about 1874 that the existence of auriferous quartz reefs was noted, a lode being found in that year in the valley of Deep Creek, which enters the Wakamarina River about six miles up from its junction with the Pelorus River. This find was soon followed by that of further quartz lodes about two miles southward, but on none of these does any work appear to have been done till some years later. In 1881 a quartz vein about 10ft. in width was discovered between Dead Horse Creek and Deep Creek, and the Golden Bar Gold-mining Company was formed to develop it. A good deal of stone was broken out, but evidently the prospects were not such as to warrant putting up crushing plant, and the company abandoned its ground in 1885. On the discovery of the Golden Bar reef other claims were taken up in the vicinity, and a lot of prospecting by means of tunnels driven into the hillside was carried out on them, but without finding anything of a payable nature. The reefs were then neglected till towards the end of 1893, when Mr. James Wilkie and party went into one of the old adits on the Empire City Claim, which adjourned the Golden Bar on the north, and found there a quartz reef that had been cut through by the earlier prospectors and left by them as unpayable. Wilkie’s party did some driving on this reef, which was 8 ft. in width between well-defined walls. They found that it carried a little gold and some scheelite, and were so hopeful of the prospect that they erected a small Otis crushing plant to treat the stone. No records are available as to the amount of quartz crushed in this plant, nor as to the results, but evidently the stone proved very poor, and operations on the field were once more suspended. Some tests of the quartz were also made on behalf of the party at Thames, but these did not yield payable results, the best values recovered being only equal to 17s. 4d. per ton for gold.
The field lay idle this time till about 1907, when a few men were put on to clean out the old drives on the Golden Bar and Federated Yorkshire Claims; but no active developments were entered on till 1910, when the Empire City, Golden Bar, and Federated Yorkshire Claims were taken up by Messrs. Humphries Bros., and a company known as the Dominion Consolidated Developing Company was formed to work them in a large way. This company was registered in January, 1911, and at once erected a twelve-stamp battery. By the end of 1912 the battery had been increased in size to twenty-five heads of stamps, and Frue vanners were installed to save the scheelite. Despite every effort made, however, to economize in the handling and treating of the stone the company failed to make any reasonable profit, but it struggled along for about twelve years, eventually going into liquidation in 1923. During the period the company operated it crushed 99,756 tons of quartz for a yield of 15,440 oz. 1 dwt. 14 gr. gold, valued at £58,969, and recovered as well 380 tons of scheelite valued at approximately £61,257, but only managed to pay in dividends the small sum of £3,750. The average value recovered was equal to 11s. 9d. per ton for gold, and 12s. 3d. per ton for scheelite.
In 1925 a further attempt to work the property was made by a syndicate that had taken it over from the liquidator. On this occasion a system of shrinkage stoping was introduced in the hope that this method of working would enable economies to be effected that would leave a small margin of profit on the mining and treatment. The effort was, however, no more successful than the previous one, 3,615 tons of quartz being mined and treated for gold valued at £2,857 3s. 10d., equal to 15s. 9d. per ton. This recovery was a little better than the company’s, but was still insufficient to pay working-expenses. The market for scheelite having collapsed, there was no added return from this mineral.
In the following year still another attempt was made to work the mine successfully, this time by a party led by Mr. T. H. Harrison, and this was the most promising in the history of the property, 1,287 tons of quartz being crushed in 1926 for a yield of 651 oz. 17 dwt. gold, valued at £2,411 1s. 3d., equal to 37s. 5d. per ton of ore. Unfortunately, just before the end of the year Mr. Harrison was accidentally killed by a fall of ground in the mine, since when, up to the time of writing, mining operations have not been resumed.
The one reef traverses all the claims on a north-north-westerly strike, and with an underlie varying from 30° to 75°, and is traceable on the surface for about 90 chains. A very considerable amount of development has been done on it, mainly within the boundaries of the Empire City and Golden Bar sections (see Fig. 1). Four adits were driven in the Empire City Claim, and a fifth was started. In the surface adit, No. 0, there was solid reef for 500 ft., and in Nos. 1 and 2 for 1,100 ft. and 1,350 ft. respectively. No. 3 adit was, however, in crushed country carrying streaks and veinlets of calcite and quartz. An intermediate level was driven from No. 3 rise on No. 3 level, and only 15 ft. above the latter, and this was extended for 850 ft., the last 350 ft. of which was in solid stone, which was afterwards stoped to surface. At a point above 650 ft. along this intermediate level a fault or break was intersected which cut the reef off, but on driving a few feet through it the reef was picked up again on the Golden Bar side, which was, subsequently, also stoped out to surface. This was the only level on the Empire City side that penetrated the break. On the Golden Bar side two adits were put in, No. 1 being 40 ft. below the Empire City intermediate level, and No. 2 120 ft. lower. Both these adits were driven on solid stone up to 8 ft. to 10 ft. wide. A good deal of stoping was done along each, but the ore on the whole was of low grade. In 1925, No. 1 Golden Bar adit was driven to the break previously referred to, when further advance was stopped. In 1926, however, under the management of Mr. Harrison, the break was penetrated at this point, with the result that the reef was picked up beyond it in a few feet of driving. It was about 8 ft. wide where struck, but opened out quickly to nearly 20 ft., and was apparently richer in gold than the stone found in any other part of the mine, for it was from here that all of the decidedly improved quality quartz evidently came that was treated in 1926.
Henderson[3] describes the country in which the reef occurs as consisting of gently dipping schists evidently altered from massive greywacke containing thin bands of finer material, and the reef itself as a fissure-lode, formed by the replacement of crushed rock in a fracture-zone by quartz, calcite, scheelite, pyrite, and gold derived from the general mass of the schist, the vein material having been brought to its present position by surface waters. On the surface the reef is massive, but with depth it shows a tendency to split up into an aggregate of small veinlets, indicating partial replacement of the crushed and sheeted country. Thus, while Nos. 1 and 2 levels of the Empire City Claim were driven in solid ore for 1,100 ft. and 1,350 ft. respectively, No. 3 was driven 750 ft. in a formation consisting merely of stringers and veinlets of quartz, while in the Federation lease on the other end of the line a tunnel driven under solid quartz only cut a similar zone of silicified country. Towards the centre line of the property the solid reef may, however, carry to considerably greater depth, and has indeed been proved to live down to No. 2 adit of the Golden Bar, 160 ft. lower than No. 2 Empire City, and there is in the former a run of fully 1,000 ft. of compact reef.
In view of the developments at the mine under Mr. Harrison's management, and of the fact that in the intermediate above No. 3 level in the Empire City section of the mine a run of some hundreds of feet of solid reef occurred north of the break, it seemed reasonable to expect that a similar run of good stone would be got down to, and below, No. 2 adit of the Golden Bar. Some further prospecting carried out, in the nature of driving the latter adit, and rising from it to No. 1 adit, served to show, however, that solid stone only lives down to a point about 20 ft. above No. 2 adit. Below that point the reef breaks up into stringers or veinlets in much the same way as on the extreme north and south ends. This stringer formation carries gold, but not in quantities payable for working. There is still a fair amount of stone of possibly payable grade to be won from between the No. 2 Golden Bar adit and the intermediate mentioned, but failing some other discovery of importance this cannot keep the mine going for more than a brief period.
As far as prospecting in the locality away from this particular reef is concerned, it must be said that there seems little to justify it. A number of reefs have been located in the ranges higher up the Wakamarina River, but they have in all cases been barren.
In 1915 G. E. Humphries and party prospected some reefs a little north of the Dominion Consolidated Company's property, near Deep Creek. These reefs varied in width from a few inches to 5 ft., and on the outcrops some of them appeared to contain fair gold content, with, at times, a percentage of scheelite. Reporting to his Department in May, 1915, Inspector of Mines T. O. Bishop stated that from three of them he had obtained fair prospects of fine gold by panning. By March, 1916, one of the reefs, the Smile of Fortune, had been driven on for 136 ft. near the surface, and had been intersected about 60 ft. lower down by a crosscut about 200 ft. in length, at which point it was said to be 3 ft. in width and to show fair prospects of gold. Further work on this reef indicated, however, that it did not live down, and a similar result followed considerable work by way of tunnelling done on other formations in the vicinity. In practically all cases the reefs appeared to die out in depth, and the values generally were found to be low and patchy. The syndicate erected a ten-stamp battery, but no crushing was ever done in it.
About two miles farther north, Alford and party, subsequently known as the "Mountain Camp Mining Partnership," found in 1915 a small reef, dipping easterly at a low angle, at a considerable elevation on the hillside north of Mountain Camp Creek. A shallow adit was put in on this for about 60 ft., and in parts the reef carried fair values. Two samples, taken from 55 ft. and 60 ft. in the drive, gave on assay 17 dwt. gold and 6.99 per cent. scheelite, and 3 dwt. gold and 6.79 per cent. scheelite, respectively, but the results of further assays showed the general values to be much lower than this.
A crosscut was later started to intersect the reef about 60 ft. below the outcrop, but it was not carried in far enough to effect its purpose. In the meantime the market for scheelite failed, and the gold content of the reef being not nearly high enough to pay for working, operations were suspended and have not since been resumed.