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On a Subterranean Water-Supply for the 

 Broken Hill Mines. 



By Samuel Dixox. 



[Read August 4, 1891.] 



Plate X. 



In laying before this Society evidences of an unlimited supply 

 of water for the treatment of ores in the Broken Hill line of 

 mines, I trust it may not be considered out of place to explain 

 why such a subject should be discussed in Adelaide rather than 

 in the colony which furnishes it. In the first place, anything 

 which would double the population at Broken Hill must be of 

 great importance to the colony which produces the chief food- 

 supply for that population; secondly, because a much larger pro- 

 portion of the owners of these mines are resident in this colony ; 

 and, thirdly, it must be confessed, because of the neglect which 

 the western division of New South AVales has always received 

 at the hands of the Sydney Government. An instance of this 

 unintelligible neglect has been greatly impressed on me in the 

 extreme difficulty experienced in obtaining the necessary data for 

 this paper ; and a still greater instance is to be found in the 

 fact that the richest silver-mines in the world remain without 

 any geological surveyor to chart down the stratigraphical dis- 

 coveries of the region, which would ultimately save the com- 

 munity thousands of pounds in exploratory shafts and drives. 



During this past summer the very greatest difficulty was ex- 

 perienced in obtaining water for the smelters alone, and then 

 not an adequate supply ; and the limitation of the weekly output 

 which resulted caused a corresponding drop in capital values, 

 amounting to <£3,000,000 alone on the Proprietary stock ; and, 

 although temporary supplies have been obtained, concentration 

 is not yet resumed, and some mines have not even attempted a 

 concentrating plant — as, for instance, Block 10, where, as ap- 

 pears from last report, the proportion of ore dumped for future 

 treatment is as 8 to 12 of the ore now smelted. 



The scheme known as the Stephens Creek Water-supply is 

 solely dependent on the rainfall, and, in view of its very uncertain 

 and limited quantity, it appears to me that, even should it suc- 

 cessfully impound that rainfall, the consumption of fresh water 

 for a population at present of 25,000, and still increasing, will, 



