has made an excellent run since starting this crushing on the 16th, and if
we continue we shall put through the largest quantity of stone since
starting; also it being better stone to crush then north end helps us.  I
hope also the return of gold will please all concerned.  I am sanguine,
but as yet it is too early to compute the result.  Only parts of the
grinding pans have arrived on mine.  I shall send you report plan and
section of mine, also the gold, next mail.

AN EXCELLENT CRUSHING.

News was received by the Southern Cross mail, yesterday, stating that the
fine yield of 140 ozs. of retorted gold had been obtained from 70 tons of
stone, from Mr Blackburne's claim, near Lake Cotton, six miles south of
Southern Cross.  The stone was crushed in the Huntingdon mill of the
Exchange G.M. Company, and the yield, as will have been seen, was at the
rate of 2 ozs. to the ton.

THE CENTRAL G.M. COMPANY.

Mr W. E. Clifton, legal manager of the above Company, has handed us the
following reports from Mr I. J. K. Cohn, the mine manager, dated Southern
Cross, 28th October: — As I found there were several parts of the battery
wanted attending to, I determined to hang up on Saturday, the 25th
instant, at 4 a.m., and clean up and put everything in good order.  I have
therefore cleaned up, and for four and a-half days run, have crushed 80
tons stone, yield 65 oz 14 dwts.  As I reported in my last, that I had
what I considered the top of a shoot of gold in your bottom level, and
that I intended to put in a week and try and trace this splendid shoot.
This I have done by sinking on it 8 feet, and it shows good heavy gold.
And as a proof of the value of the find, I send you a nugget weighing 3 oz
10 dwts, out of one piece of stone which came out of the stamper box.  I
have stopped sinking No 3 shaft and started to open out on a 7 foot reef
at the 40 foot level, on payable gold.  I must do this to raise stone for
crushing.  You know I cannot get sufficient in sinking, and, as I have
already mentioned in previous correspondence, I have no ground opened out
to work upon.  I am pleased to inform you that I have got over a good deal
of the water difficulty by the manner in which I have arranged the tables,
and intend to still further improve by giving them more pitch.  All this
work I commenced on Monday, and it will, I think, take me until Thursday,
as I have taken the whole of the engine to pieces, and I am giving the
boiler a thorough cleaning.  She has been running over seven weeks, but
she is not at all bad; the water has not affected her in the least.  I
hope that the repairs I am making will meet with your approbation.  It
will save no end of money, time and labour in the future.  I have let a
contract to supply the battery with wood for six months at 15s. per cord,
thereby saving one fourth the cost of the past.  In conclusion, the shoot
of gold, which is about four feet wide, has every appearance of being
permanent from the indication, No 3 shaft I have sunk to a depth of 52
feet.  Driven same shaft 5 feet showing 7 feet of a reef.  Sunk winze in
bottom level 8 feet, and drive South in same level 4 feet.  Gold showing
in No 3 drive.  The nugget shows that it is a reef nugget, but all the
gold in this shoot is coarse.  There were several 4 or 5 dwt. pieces in
the stamper box.  I suspect to start crushing at 6 pm on Wednesday, the
29th of October.