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 was experienced in sinking, owing to the great quantity of water that found its way into the shaft, but eventually a depth of 285 ft. was reached, and a level was opened out there about 40 ft. under the No. 4 level of the old shaft. At about 230 ft. west from the shaft a slickensided plane was met, along which a drive was extended for 400 ft. in a south-easterly direction, and two crosscuts were put out from it to the west to come under the old workings. These crosscuts intersected a track that had been driven on in No. 4 level from the original shaft, but no reef was found, and in 1910 the company ceased operations. No work has since been done on the claim.

It is evident that the shoot of quartz worked in the upper levels of the old shaft was cut off by a fault, and Dr. Henderson has given it as his opinion (Geol. Bull. No. 18, p. 131) that it must be considered the upper portion of a shoot of which the downward extension lies to the north-eastward of the fault-plane explored from the new shaft, in which case he considered it should not have been difficult to locate from that shaft if work had been carried out in the right direction.

During the few years the Caledonian Mine was productive the total stone crushed, including the 900 tons from the old dump, amounted to 1,406 tons, which yielded 2,162 oz. gold, valued at £8,364, and £2,250 was paid in dividends.

No. 2 South Larry’s Mine.—The reef in this mine was discovered very shortly after the discovery of the Caledonian reef. An adit 600 ft. in length was driven, which cut the reef 100 ft. below the outcrop. Where intersected the stone was 12 ft. in width, but was not solid, consisting of stringers of quartz interspersed with slate and sandstone, and it is said to have had very ill-defined walls. The quartz stringers carried visible gold. The company erected a ten-stamp battery and commenced crushing in the same year as the Caledonian, 1874. In the adit mentioned the lode-channel was driven on for about 70 ft. north and 260 ft. south, in which distance three lenses of quartz are said to have been met with. A small first crushing from the adit is reported to have yielded 18 dwt. gold per ton, but when stoping was started the values decreased. By the end of 1877 all the stone above the adit had been stoped to surface, 7,514 tons being crushed for a return of 4,129 oz. gold, valued at £13,999 17s. 6d. The average yield was thus 10 dwt. 11 gr. per ton.

In 1883–84 the long Argyle tunnel, the lowest level in the mine, was driven to the reef, 40 ft. below the first adit. In this working the stone is said to have been much more compact than in the upper level, but it proved to be very poor, yielding only 3 dwt. gold per ton at the battery, and, as this grade was not payable to work, mining operations were suspended.

After lying idle for a number of years the claim, as previously stated, was given some attention by the Consolidated Goldfields Company in the “nineties.” The old adits were repaired and a certain amount of prospecting done, but the prospects could not have been encouraging, for the ground was soon abandoned again, and nothing in the way of mining has since been done on it.

Apart from the fact that the values in the reef fell away in the lower workings, it is evident that the reef was disturbed by earth-movement, for whereas the dip was to the eastward in No. 1 adit it was to the westward in the Argyle tunnel. It is probable that the impoverishment of the quartz below the upper level was not permanent, but there seems to have been little in the appearance of the mine to induce prospecting effort at any greater depth.