However, When The
Purchasers Started Work, It Was Soon Discovered That The Golden Floor To
The Golden Hole Only Continued
Golden to the depth of three or four
inches, to the despair of the promoters and unlucky shareholders, as well
As of the numberless adjoining leaseholders, through whose property this
rich reef had been traced.
It seems incredible that a vein should run in more than one direction, and
yet it is made to do so, and to go North, East, South, or West, or to any
intermediate point of the compass, at the discretion of those responsible
for the prospectus! An unmistakable surface outcrop is not popular amongst
experts (it leaves no scope for the exercise of an elastic imagination),
whereas they cannot be expected to see under ground, and can then make
their reef run in the most suitable direction.
I do not think the much-abused expert is any more dishonest than other
folk, though he has more temptation. His bread and butter depends on his
fee, his fee depends, not on the accuracy of his report, but on the fact,
whether or no that report suits his employers. If, as often is the case,
he has to report on a "lease" whose only value is derived from its close
proximity to a rich show, and if that rich show only appears above the
surface in an isolated mass, and its direction of strike can only be
guessed at, and, above all, if he knows that his fee or future employment
depends on guessing that direction into the property under report, I think
he has been led into temptations from which most of us are exempt, and
which a good many would find it hard to resist.
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