Mines and Mineral Statistics. 
^5 
promise to reward the enterprise and energy of the gentleman 
who has constructed them. A tail-race some 400 yards in len^^th 
has been cut in some places to a depth of 60 feet, in some places 
it has been tunnelled a considerable distance through the solid 
bed rock. The race is boxed throughout, and its cost is estimated 
at about £3,000. By means of this race the lessee will be 
enabled to ground-sluice some thousands of yards of the Burra 
Creek and the adjacent flats. It is estimated that the lessee has 
a field which will afford remunerative employment for the next 
twelve years. The deposit is from 18 inches to 2 feet in height, 
and prospects taken from the face at several points gave an 
average of ^ dwt. to the tin dish. On the Mannus Creek similar 
works on a still larger scale now approach completion under the 
superintendence of the same gentleman, and the ground which 
will be operated upon when the race and other preliminary works 
are completed is said to be more promising than that at the Burra 
Creek. These works are without doubt the largest and most 
important of tlie kind in the Colony, as they will ensure the 
development of large areas of ground known to be highly auriferous 
which have remained unoccupied for many years. The tunnels 
by means of which the rich deposits supposed to underlie the 
basaltic formation in the high lands around Tumbarumba were 
to have been tapped, have not produced such satisfactory results 
as the enterprise deserved, and work in connection with them has 
been temporarily suspended. At Quranic mining operations 
have not been cariled on with that vigour which the known 
richness of the reef would justify ; this may be due to want of 
mining experience or want of co-operation amongst the inhiers. 
At Yarara, near the Ten-mile Creek, Albury Division, some 
excitement prevails in consequence of the discovery of some gold- 
bearing quartz veins found in the adjacent slopes, but no opinion 
can be expressed of the importance of the discovery pending the 
further development of the veins. 
Mr. Warden De Boos reports : — 
At the Shoalhaven Eher, advantage has been taken of the 
low state of the river to work portions of the river bed. Both 
Europeans and Chinese are employed upon this 'work, which is 
sufficiently remunerative whilst it lasts, though the gold is very 
fine and requires great care to save. No works of any great 
extent, however, have been constructed in connection with it. 
The working of a river bed is at all times a precarious opera- 
tion, but it ^ is more especially so in the Shoalhaven, which, 
taking its rise in some of the loftiest ranges on the coast, is 
peculiarly liable, in the upper part of its course, to floods, — a 
thunderstorm in the ranges often sending down a fresh heavy 
enough to demolish the works in the river bed. Thus it can of 
