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 sixteen years of groping—but in most instances they were never located. A striking instance is that of the Progress Mines, in which large ore-bodies occurred which produced gold to the value of £1,652,204, and paid over £395,000 in dividends. In this mine the stone that was mined all came from a huge earth-block that had been moved from the position it occupied at the time the lodes were deposited, and all effort failed to trace the lost portion, although an immense sum of money was spent in the search for it. Much the same experience was the fate of such mines as the Caledonian, Golden Fleece, Cumberland, Inkerman West, and Kirwan’s Reward. The faulting seems to have been mainly of the normal order, hence the lost parts of the various lodes should have been rediscoverable had the search been carried out vigorously and in the right way, but in some cases the post-mineral movements had undoubtedly entered the original fissures themselves, shattering the reefs up hopelessly to probably great depths, while in others the movements were so complicated that it was extremely difficult to know just what the nature of the disturbance had been. It may be said, however, that the mines were chiefly held by small local companies working on very limited capital, with the inevitable consequence that when trouble of this kind was met with there were no funds available for the prospecting and deadwork necessary to relocate the broken ore-shoots, and little effort was made in this direction. Apart from that, the conduct of mining operations was usually in the hands of men who, while good practical miners, had no special training in geological observation, and were thus ill equipped for the carrying-out of the search to advantage.

In preparing the following descriptions of the various mines of the district, the writer, for the sake of convenience, has dealt with them by lode-series according to the classification made by Dr. Henderson in Geological Bulletin No. 18 (New Series).

This group of auriferous lodes occurred between the Inangahua and Waitahu Rivers, and northward of the headwaters of Murray Creek. The discovery of gold-bearing stone on this series was made in 1870, and was probably the first of its kind to be made in the Reefton locality, the credit of making it being given to a prospector named Patrick Kelly. Another prospector, Frederick Westfield, lodged the first application for a claim on the field, but the honour of being the original discoverer of gold in this neighbourhood is generally accorded to Kelly. The find was made on part of what was later the Golden Treasure Claim.

Within a very short time after the first discovery was made, the claims known as the Perseverance, Band of Hope, Comstock, Westland, Golden Treasure, Victoria, Phoenix, and Inglewood were pegged out along the line.

Perseverance Mine.—The Perseverance lay somewhat to the west of Kelly’s line, at its southern end, but the position of the reef in it was probably due to displacement, the locality having been subjected to the action of several powerful faults. An adit was put in, which picked the reef up at 160 ft. in and 100 ft. below the outcrop. The reef was driven on in a northerly direction for about 100 ft., and was up to 8 ft. wide, but the values were evidently low. In 1877 and 1880 two small crushings, totalling 57 tons, appear to have been taken from it, which yielded 19 oz. gold. In the last-mentioned year the claim was abandoned, and lay idle till