Prince of Wales Co.

History

PRINCE OF WALES COMPANY, Little Bendigo.-A meeting of the above Company will be held at the Hermit’s Cave Hotel, on the 23rd instant, at 7 o’clock p.m. A Call of 30s per share becomes due, and all shares on which any calls remain unpaid after 14 days from this date will be sold to defray expenses. By order. GEO. WALKER, Secretary. 21st August, 1860.

CRESWICK MINING.
PRINCE OF WALES QUARTZ REEF.-The shaft of the Prince of Wales quartz reef was, on Monday last, 170 feet deep. In going down, six specimens containing gold, taken , from several small leaders of two and three inches thick, were met with; some loose gold was also found.- We understand that the company are ejecting a whim in order to raise the quartz more easily.

MINING INTELLIGENCE.

The Prince of Wales Company, Cobbler's, are steadily working, and, as stated, upon the Cobbler's lead proper. The shaft bottomed upon gold, and a drive was put in to the edge of what is now supposed to be the Frenchman's gutter, having the rock for headings, but the workings were not continued in that direction, and a level was opened into the Cobbler's gutter at an elevation of 12 or 14 feet above the bottom of the shaft, In this gutter the company are now working, and with good results, albeit the yield is not equal to that promised by the explorations in the deeper ground or actually realised by the Nelson and Red Jacket Companies in the Frenchman's gutter. This company paid a dividend of £12 last week for the fortnight, after a reserve for liabilities, which still amount to between £6000 and £7000. Higher dividends than that have been paid, and the company are pretty well satisfied with their prospects for the future. They have a splendid plant of machinery and are thus equal to almost any difficulty likely to happen in the conduct of their operations.

MINING INTELLIGENCE.

The Prince of Wales Company paid a dividend of £18 per share last Saturday, the produce of gold being 250 ozs for the fortnight. The shaft has been deepened 45 feet, and a total depth thus reached of390 feet. A chamber is now being opened 8 feet by 17, and 8 feet high. This additional depth was rendered necessary by the greater depth of the ground beyond the company's workings in the earlier portion of the Cobbler's gutter. In the old gutter there is yet a large extent of ground unworked, which will yield profitable employment to the company for a long time to come. The works in connection with the quartz crushing plant are evidently cast on an efficient scale, and with promise of solidity that should satisfy the most nervous. The foundations of the battery are nearly ready, and they consist of eleven layers of logs 14 inches square, giving an elevation of 12 ½ feet from the surface, and thus affording a good off-shoot for the tailings. Some little trouble has been taken by the company to obtain a complete apparatus, and to this end emissaries of the company have visited works at Clunes and Ballarat, for the purpose of deciding upon the best plans of gold-saving. It is expected that the whole battery and its accompaniments will be in complete working order in about six weeks hence. This company has been wise in its generation in a way in which many companies are not. A treaty of peace has been come to with the Working Miners Company, on the Frenchman's, the only company to be immediately feared in the matter of litigation, and by this treaty all litigation between the parties has been apparently forestalled. A line of boundary has been agreed on between the companies, beyond which neither is to go, and within which on either side the respective companies are to have all they can find. This arrangement is no doubt judicious, and will certainly tend to enhance the value of scrip in both companies.

MINING.

To the Royal Saxon and Hand-in-Hand companies another evil has fallen, viz., the inundation of their mines, either in whole or in part. This happened a week or two ago, but measures are now being taken for curing the evil by the usual pumping appliances. These companies have not been obtaining so much gold lately as in some earlier periods of their history, and the Hand-in-Hand, as well as the Republic, has been prevented by pending litigation from turning its claim to the best account in a gold producing sense. In the Republic claim a new run, or a fresh portion of an old run has recently been struck, and with excellent promise. The Extended Company's ground is yielding handsomely, and the last dividend declared for the fortnight was £100 per share. An equally good dividend is expected for the current fortnight. The value of the gold obtained during the month by this company, at £4 0s 6d per ounce, amounts to £13,866, affording a dividend of £136 per share, besides a reserve fund for working expenses. The Cosmopolitan Company's mine once, one of the very best paying ones in the district, and still having a large area of unworked ground, has not been yielding so well lately. The Koh-i-noor Company's mine is open to a similar remark, while its value is so well known that shares are still quoted at £3000 and over. The company held a meeting on Tuesday, at which it was decided to sink another shaft, 8 ½ by 3 ½ feet by means of which, in conjunction with the present one, the whole of the mine may be conveniently worked out. Tenders for the work will be invited forthwith, as also for the supply of two new engines and gear. These works argue something for the pluck and confidence of the company in this splendid claim, for the outlay resolved on will reach £8000 or £9000 in all probability. The dividend paid by the company last fortnight was £30 per share. The Nelson and Prince of Wales Companies come next in the list of dividend-paying ventures. The first continues to pay good dividends, albeit the company is cramped in its operations by the several law disputes in which the unfortunate shareholders are involved. The Prince of Wales claim is one of the most promising in the district, for in addition to a good alluvial area that is almost certain to pay well, the company has a large quartz lode which is yielding a capital average. The company has a crushing mill in active operation, and with this and the gutter at the company's disposal, the holders of scrip may consider themselves among the luckiest of mining adventurers in these parts. The Defiance Company's ground is yielding very fairly, but litigation is locking up a part of the proceeds. The Albion Company is not in law troubles yet, nor is the mine yielding any thing very remarkable yet. The company has a very large area of ground, and soon the operations going on should reveal something of importance as to the course and value of the leads within the company's parallels. Pursuing the valley downwards below Sebastopol Hill, the mines are for the most part in early stages of development. Some few are in deep ground, and getting dividends, but the major portion are either in preliminary stages, or are shut up with water or legal difficulties. Prom the Cobbler's Lead, down past the Scotchman's, Black Lead, Napoleon, and Durham, to the outermost verge of enterprise in one direction occupied by the Caledonian Company, and in another by the Durham outposts, there is a long list of mines, some of which promise well, and others of which are paying fair returns. The latest novelty in that direction is the striking of the third rock by the Fortuna Company, and the starting of the newly erected plant of the Caledonia Company. The starting of new machinery is now getting to be an occasion of jovial re-unions among shareholders and their friends, and the Caledonia Company kept up the ceremony very heartily. The whole of the machinery, plant, and housing has been supplied and erected by Messrs Robinson and Thomas, of the Soho Foundry, Ballarat, for the sum of £1720, and the execution of the contract is spoken of by the shareholders in the highest terms. The bedding of the engine and boiler is of the solidest kind, and the ample brace and roomy engine and boiler house are snugly covered in. The contract includes a horizontal engine of 16 ¼ inch cylinder, with 3 feet stroke, and with extra finished brasses and fittings, 200 feet of 10 inch lifts, boiler, 50 feet brick chimney, and the usual housing complete. The shaft is 7 ½ feet by 3, and is now about 50 feet down, and dry, the Fortuna Company, close by, draining the water away apparently for the present. About 40 feet of lifts are in the shaft, and the remainder are on the ground ready for use when wanted. The farther sinking of the shaft 100 feet has been taken by Mr Maddern, of the late Burra Burra Company, at £6 9s per foot, on the usual terms, the gutter depth being calculated at a little over 200 feet. Mr Munro, of the Cosmopolitan Company, has the present direction of the mining operations of the company.

NEWS AND NOTES.
At the Warden's Court, Creswick, on Monday, application was made by W. C. Stewart for block claim 77, formerly held by the Prince of Wales Company, Frenchman's Reef. The application was granted. Thomas Davis and Co., applied for block claims 365 and 581. The application was granted. The cause Barkitt v Hamilton was postponed for a week, in order that proper notice might be given.

MINING INTELLIGENCE.
The Prince of Wales Company obtained 130 oz of alluvial gold last week. The batteries will be cleared up this week as usual for the fortnight, and a fair average dividend is expected.

MINING INTELLIGENCE.

At the Prince of Wales Company's works we had an opportunity yesterday (Friday) of seeing an improved buddie in operation. The old Cornish buddie is a rather primitive affair, which is nevertheless of no inconsiderable value as a gold saver, but the buddies at the Prince of Wales claim are a great improvement on the older machine. This new apparatus is the invention of Mr Matthews, the well-known engineer to the Prince of Wales and several other companies about Sebastopol, Cobblers, and the Durham, and it appears to work very successfully. There are two wooden basins exactly like the ordinary puddling machines, but with the floors declining from the circumference to the centre where there is a cast-iron drum and vertical shaft. In this shaft are sockets for arms radiating from over the top of the drum, and above them are other sockets for half round pipes stretching out across the basin and discharging water along the top of the inner circumference of the basin, while the arms traverse the floor of the basin. To the arms are nailed bits of canvas or bagging along some three or four feet of the arm from the outer ends, and these traverse the basin in the same way as the harrows in the ordinary puddler. The sand or sludge from the battery pits and puddling drain is propelled by a stream of water into the cylindrical top of the vertical shaft of the buddie-drum, whence it runs out of the half round gutters that radiate from the shaft. These gutters throw the stuff down the side of the basin as they revolve, the arms below sweep the bottom, and the stuff falls along the declining floor to the drum, where the water escapes by a circular open space between the outer edge of the drum, and the floor of the basin. The sand accumulates gradually on the floor, the deepest deposit being, of course, at the lowest part of the floor round the drum, the particles of gold resting along the upper portion of the floor, and for about eighteen inches from the circumference of the basin. As the deposit of sand accumulates, the drum, with its arms, is raised by a wheel and screw, until the basin is as full as is necessary. The stuff along the eighteen inch golden circle is then taken out and run through an apparatus which looks like a cross between a cradle and an old buddie, and the remainder of the sand in the basin is thrown away as worthless. After the golden stuff has been passed through what we will call, for want of a better name, the cradle-buddie, the quantity is still farther reduced to a gold-charged residuum, which is passed through an amalgamating barrel and retorted in the usual way. Some fire boys and two men manage the two buddie and the other apparatus therewith connected, the work going on night and day at a wage cost of about £10 10s a week, the gold won being from 6 oz to 8 oz per week. It will be obvious, therefore, that there is a very considerable margin of profit, The cost of the apparatus is not great. The castings for these two buddies comprise the drums and their shafts with horizontal arms, levers, chains, and wheels connecting with the amalgamating barrel and they were supplied by Messrs Hunt and Opie, of the Victoria Foundry, Ballarat, for the sum of £160. The apparatus may possibly be susceptible of still further improvement, the basin being of iron instead of wood for instance, but its operation already is sufficiently encouraging to induce the company to continue its use and to contemplate larger operations. There is a vast spread of discharged tailings and sludge lying about the company's claim, all of which, it is presumed, will pay for putting through the buddies, so that there is a wide field yet for gold saving processes to be tried upon. The secretary of the company informed us that it is proposed to lift the old outspread of sludge and tailings, and pass the stuff through the buddies, a process which will doubtless recover a good deal of gold that otherwise would be lost in the company's alluvial workings below some delay has been caused lately by a heavy flow of water in the main drive where the men at the face have recently struck the Cobblers gutter. Bailing with the 12in. plunger at good stroke is likely to manage the water, but in the meantime the yield of alluvial gold is of course affected. If any dividend at all is paid this fortnight, it will, in all probability be one of 5s per scrip. The buddies are worked by the 24in. cylinder engine, which pumps, crushes, puddles, buddies, amalgamates, and, in fact, makes itself so generally useful as to be a sort of ferruginous admirable Crichton. The vertical engine of 14in. cylinder does the hauling, and both are kept as bright and clean as if only just put up and polished.

MINING INTELLIGENCE.

In the matter of the appeal by the Princess of Wales Company v Prince of Wales Company, we hear that Saturday next will probably be the day of which decree will be given, or some early day thereafter. The Prince of Wales Company advertises its reorganisation under the statute, with nominal capital of £120,000, in £25 shares, the capital paid-up being 115,000. Mr Tatham is the legal manager, and his office is at the claim.

Site

The Prince of Wales Co. (Ltd) was operating at Cobbler’s Lead, Sebastopol in 1864.

The People

Jon Dane, board member and Chairman, (December 1870>)

George Coleman Robinson, board member (<1870>)

James Slater, board member (<1870>)

Frederick William Tatham, manager (1862-1875)

External Links

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--Beth Kicinski 11:40, 16 January 2013 (EST)