l6 HATCH: THE KOLAR GOLD-FIELD. 



has an important bearing on the development of the mines : for an 

 inclined shaft put down on the true underlie of the vein, i.e., at right 

 angles to itsstrike, will sooner or later emerge from payable into unpay- 

 able quartz. For this reason it has been deemed expedient in some 

 cases to sink the inclined shafts and winzes in the direction of the 

 dip of the chute instead of on the true underlie of the vein. Notable 

 instances are Crocker's and Ribblesdale's shafts in the Mysore Mine 

 which have been sunk in this manner. It will also be clear that 

 a valuable pay-chute which has been developed near the northern 

 boundary of a mine will, in consequence of its northerly dip, pass 

 sooner or later into the property of its next neighbour to the 

 north. The only clear case of a chute dipping to the south instead of 

 to the north is found in the West Balaghat lode of the Gold-fields 

 Mine, where there is a chute 50 feet long having this dip. 



Within the limits of the chutes the quartz veins are of fair, 

 sometimes of considerable, width, as in the instance already given of 

 Crocker's chute, where stopes of 30 to 35 feet have been worked. 

 With regard to the distribution of the gold-contents, although the 

 whole of the chute-area is, as a rule, payable, the gold is by no means 

 uniformly distributed, patches and spots of high-grade ore alternat- 

 ing with areas of poorer ore. Outside the limits of the chute the 

 veins are pinched to few stringers which carry but little gold, or there 

 may be no quartz at all, the position of the lode being only indica- 

 ted by the presence of divisional planes (hanging and foot walls) 

 enclosing sheared rock or, in miners parlance, "lodey matter." 

 Reference to the sections of the mines (Pis. 7 to 11) will show that 

 there are in places considerable stretches of barren ground between 

 the pay-chutes. Thus the Mysore Mine is divided into three indepen- 

 dent, sections by intervening stretches of barren ground. Between 

 the central and northern sections the unpayable portion of the vein 

 is 2,000 feet in length: while between the central and southern 

 sections there is a similar belt of valueless ground 1,500 feet in 

 length. In the northern section, which is developed by Gilbert's and 

 Tennant's shafts, the principal chute is that known as " Gilbert's/' 

 Its northerly dip soon carried it, however, into the Champion Reef Mine 



