THE REEFS AT OLD MAN RANGE, BALD HILL. (By Oon Special I'Ei'oin'Kit.)

1 Quartz mining in New Zealand is beset with s more thau ordinaty dilUculties. In the first place the reefs anil hi.lcs here present a number ' of structural peculiarities, which have no analo gies in other mining countries, and which, there _ fore, have to he studied aud understood before i their ell'ects in the exploitation of mines can be , foreseen aud estimated. Iv the second place,. quartz lodes hero have beeu subjected to dis l placements by surface movements to au exteut i unknown in aoy other ruining districts, breaking - up, disconnecting, aud throwing about lodes iv ', all conceivable directions. With these peculiari ties, tho New Zualand reefs sharo all the troubles caused by slides, heaves, breaks, and cross courses, which, in tho ordinary way of iniuiug, have long since become familiar features to tho profession. It is owiug to tho above mentioned two causes that-quartz mining iias not beeu more successful than it is, aud uutil tho pccularities of our New Zealand reefs are better uuderstood this cias3 of mining must remain more or less precarious. The Old Man Range roofs preseut featuns of more than ordinary iuterest. The ordinary quartz lode suggests blasting material to break out the stone, rock breakers, aud crushing machinery to reduce it to dust, and other pouderous work*. At thu Old Man t<aug-i all those are superseded. All that is necessary is a head of water aud means for tho arrest of the gold, and quartz reefing can be begun, aud nude to pay, aud that handsomely too. Although a battery has vow been engaged for several years it is safe to say that more gold has been sluiced out aud saved by the different parties at work thau was obtaiued by tho aid of tho crushiug machine. But this wasteful way of sluicing, by which the free gold only was saved—the quartz rubble and stoves, containing the greater portion of the gold, beiug allowed to spread itself with the refuse over the hillside, thus being irrecover ably lost—canuot now becarried ou much further, and quartz miuing is beginning to replace quartz sluicing. white's reek The pioneer quartz sjuicers were Mr J. White and Mr A. 