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 about 7 ft. On Nos. 4 and 5 levels the shoots were found still living down, but they were broken and displaced. No. 6 level produced a lot of quartz, the shoots there being respectively 270 ft. long by 6 ft. wide, and 180 ft. by 5 ft. As depth-was attained, however, the stone grew more and more patchy in value, and generally much poorer than in the upper levels, with the result that while fairly large quantities of quartz showed on Nos. 7, 8, and 9 levels most of it was too low-grade to pay for extraction. On No. 8 level no stoping was done. The company did very well, nevertheless, till 1908, up to which year it paid dividends, but its long period of prosperity then came to an end, and after struggling along for several years more it went into liquidation in 1911, and was reconstructed under the name of the Keep-it-Dark Mines, Ltd. During the thirty-seven years of its operation the Keep-it-Dark Quartz-mining Company produced, as nearly as can now be determined, 253,441 tons of stone, which yielded 115,547 oz. gold, valued at £443,509, and paid in dividends £158,666 13s. 4d., equal to £7 13s. 8d. per share. The total paid-up capital was £8,708 6s. 8d.

The Keep-it-Dark Mines, Ltd., carried on till the early part of 1917, when another reconstruction took place under the title of the New Keep-it-Dark Mines, Ltd. During this period some 54,866 tons of quartz were crushed for a return of 16,841 oz. 8 dwt. 23 gr. gold, valued at £63,261 7s. 1d., but no dividends were paid. The New Keep-it-Dark Mines, Ltd., found a lot of fresh working capital, and made an effort to put the mine on to a paying basis again, but it so completely failed in its purpose that it went into voluntary liquidation in October, 1922. While the company operated it raised and crushed 13,943 tons of quartz for a yield of 2,801 oz, 5 dwt. 15 gr. gold, valued at £10,507. In the following year the mine was let on tribute to a party of working-miners, who removed the block of ore left by the original company over No. 1 level, taking out from it 3,429 tons, which have a yield of 1,963 oz. 7 dwt. gold, valued at £8,062 12s. 3d. The removal of this stone was completed in the early part of 1924, since when no work has been done in the mine.

The total output of the mine since it was first opened would thus appear to be approximately 325,679 tons of quartz, from which 137,153 oz. gold were won, worth £525,339 19s. 4d., while the dividends, as before mentioned, were £158,666 13s. 4d.

It is clear that both the principal shoots in the mine were strongly affected by faulting, and that the eastern shoot had been badly shattered by it, but the available data is much too scanty to admit of any but the vaguest theorizing as to its exact nature. It is probable that both the eastern and western shoots were originally continuous shoots, having a general north-and-south strike, which were distorted and broken by east-and-west faulting. This faulting must, however, have been of a local character, for while there is no sufficient information at hand to show how far the faulting that tossed the eastern shoot about extended in this east-and-west direction, it is known that the movement that affected the western shoot did not cross the Hercules (Smith’s) line. The effect of whatever movement occurred in this western shoot seemed to have been to bend it into the shape of a V, splitting it into two sections, which may be described as eastern and western legs or branches. Fig. 8, which shows the position of each of these sections on some of the lower levels from the main shaft, will serve to explain what is meant. As depth was attained the two sections were separated by greater distances at each level, making them more and more difficult to locate. The eastern leg was not worked on Nos. 6, 7, or 8 levels, but a little mining was done on it on No. 9.