Alexandra Times at KellyGang 6/2/1875
(see next)
GOBUR
(FROM OUR OWN CORESPONDENT)
I don’t see what people living in the immediate vicinity of the craters of Vesuvius or Etna in eruption have to complain of. I consider their situation to be enviable in comparison to what ours has been for the last week. Another week or two of this weather and I'll wager that I will be able to vie with any Indian fire eater, walk on any red hot bar of iron barefoot, or drink tea from the sprout of a tea-pot at the boiling point. Just now the thermometer is standing at about I25deg, and I feel quite comfortable. King Sol puts on a red uniform as morning and evening dress, which reminds me very much of a great Chinese lantern made of red tissue paper with a tallow candle inside; and by way of garnish we have, volumes of smoke ascending from the s blazing hills in all directions, giving one the idea that all the smoke stacks in the colony had one common issue an Gobur. So much a for the weather.
I know not why, but somehow the gods are not propitious to us in mining matters, for no sooner are we out of one difficulty than we are plunged into another. We appear to be particularly fortunate in the management of our mines, Managements have been changed, but succeeding managements show no improvement on former ones. The New Gobur Co. appears to be particularly unlucky in this direction. Some time ago this mine was let on, tribute, but through some difference that occurred between the proprietors and the tributers, the latter have been ousted from the mine, they having had no legal tenure, and being simply tenants at will.
That this mine is a valuable property there can be a doubt, but the system of working lately adapted could not be made to pay, as there was no "get-away," to use a technical term, for the dirt. The yields obtained to the machine - from 4 to 10 oz., and as high is 30oz. - would be considered dividend paying in any other place than Gobur. I am informed on competent authority that the ground has been what is technically understood as pig-rooted ? ? ? having been made of the working as the work progressed, and consequently no tracing of the various blocks that were being worked - so that in the event of any portion of the ground coming down, drives would have to be put in hap-hazard to endeavor to find the ground required. It is evident that such a system of working could not tend to a successful issue, seeing that a large quantity of dead-work had to be done, which under a proper system might be obviated and materially enhance the returns.
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