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 thus making it evident that the lens was making very rapidly away to the north.

In the first half of 1926 a company known as the Alexander Mines, Ltd., was formed to provide the necessary funds to enable the mine to be opened up more actively. This company was of 75,000 shares of £1 each, 25,000 of which, together with £12,000 in cash, was to go to the vendors, the Alexander Gold-mining Syndicate. The company continued the driving of No. 2 adit on the reef, which, it may be mentioned, was named the McVicar, and found the lens here to be about 158 ft. in length, with an average width of nearly 5ft.; but at this distance the drive came out to daylight again, the reef having cut through a narrow spur. Another adit (No. 3) was also put in about 100 ft. below No. 2, with a view to picking up the reef at that depth, but although several reef-tracks were met with the reef was not picked up. A winze was then started on No. 2 level, at a point about 160 ft. in from the crosscut, and a branch drive was put out from No. 3 adit, in a southerly direction, to come under it. In this branch drive reef was met with, but it was apparently not the same as worked higher up, having a different appearance and being much poorer in gold. The winze was connected by a rise with No. 3 adit, and it was found that the McVicar block lived down in it for only 40 ft. below No. 2 adit. At 50 ft. down an intermediate level, No. 2, was driven north from the winze for over 80 ft., but no stone was got in it. Two short rises put up from the intermediate level showed the stone, however, at 9 ft. and 15 ft. up respectively. Despite the fact that the stone cut out, a strong reef-track, consisting of pug and quartz fragments, lived down on the same dip the stone had shown, and this seemed to indicate that faulting had taken place in the ore-channel itself and the stone had been carried down. It was most unfortunate, but quite in keeping with the experience of other mines in the district, that the rich quartz should have cut out in this way, and there is nothing now for the company but to follow the track down persistently if the shoot is to be picked up again. Already No. 4 adit has been started, 100 ft. below No. 3, in the effort to locate it, but insufficient work has yet been done on this level to show whether on not it will locate the stone. In the meantime, while prospecting for the downward continuation of this shoot is in progress, the company is carrying on operations on the Downey reef at Mullocky Creek, about 2,500 ft. north of the McVicar and 700 ft. to 800 ft. lower. A drive has been put in on this reef, which for 41 ft. showed a width of about 18 in. of stone carrying fair values. The reef then closed in to a mere track, and, although the drive has now been extended 150 ft., no more solid quartz has been found. Several other outcrops known to be gold-bearing occur in the company’s property, but no development has yet been done on them.

When the company took over the mine it installed a petrol-engine to drive the battery, in place of the electrical power previously used, and continued crushing in a small way, putting through up to the end of last year a further 352 tons of stone, which yielded by amalgamation 675 oz. 5 dwt. gold, valued at £2,685 0s. 2d. A cyanide plant was also provided, in which the sands accumulated from previous crushings, as well as those from the company’s own crushings, were treated, yielding 134 oz. 10 dwt. 2 gr. gold, valued at £422 0s. 9d. The total crushings to the end of 1926 were thus 1,011 tons, which yielded 2,455 oz. 16 dwt. gold, valued at £9,747 1s. 5d., an average of 2 oz. 8 dwt. 14 gr. per ton. The Alexander