By A Series Of Shafts With Drives, Or Galleries, Connecting Them When They Cut The Vein, A More Accurate Estimate Of The Value Of The Reef Can Be Made.

Now in the case of a reef which has rich shoots a prospector, naturally anxious to make his "show" as alluring as possible to any possible buyer, sinks his trial shaft, on the underlay, through the shoots.

And so it might happen, that by carefully selecting the sites of his shafts, he might have a dazzling show of gold in each one, and merely blank quartz between them. A mining expert, usually only too ready to give a glowing report, makes his estimates on the assumption that the quartz intervening between the shafts is as rich as that visible in them, and the purchase price increases accordingly.

Not only do shoots occur to puzzle the expert, gladden the heart of the prospector, and madden the shareholder, but the eccentricity of gold is further exemplified by the way in which it has been been deposited in "pockets."

No better example of this could be given than the Londonderry Mine, where gold to the value of many thousand pounds was won from quite a small hole in the outcrop. At the bottom of this hole lumps of solid gold could be seen, and inasmuch as other pockets, equally rich, had been found, it was assumed by nearly all concerned that the reef was a solid mass of gold, and the whole community was mad with excitement.

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