four battery feeders on duty, prohibiting any of
them from leaving until the cleaning up was finished, and the amalgam
cleaned, squeezed and weighed, and the amount entered by the mill
manager in the record look and attested by the amalgamators.

"I think the intelligent readers (particularly those with a knowledge
of the business) will see the drift of the above regulations, viz., for
there to be any peculation the whole of the battery staff--fourteen in
all--would have to participate in it, and the number was too many to
keep a secret. Formerly the amalgam cleaning room was sacred to the mill
manager, and on announcing to that official the new instructions he at
once tendered his resignation in a tone of offended dignity, immediately
followed by that of the mine manager. It is a significant fact that
shortly afterwards these two officials purchased a large mill and other
property at a cost of ten thousand pounds, and that the mine yielded
for the following three years during which I was connected with it an
average of over 17 dwt. to the ton, as against formerly 10 to 12 dwt.

"The reader must draw his own conclusions. I used to make it a practice
to visit the mine daily and prospect the ore, and having the mine and
mill managers' daily prospecting as a guide as well as my own, every
man at the mill knew it was impossible for them to thieve without my
detecting it; moreover, I made it a rule to discharge any of the mill
employees that I discovered were interested in any small private claims.

"The crux of the whole thing is having a practical miner at the head of
affairs, and it is impossible for him to thieve if the work is carried
out in the manner I have described."

To bring the whole matter to a conclusion. It may be taken as a safe
axiom that to make gold mining in the mine as distinct from mining on
the Stock Exchange really profitable the same system of economy, of
practical supervision, and scientific knowledge which is now adopted in
all other businesses must be applied to the raising and extraction of
the metal. Then, and not till then, will genuine mining take the place
to which it is entitled amongst our industries.

CHAPTER XI

RULES OF THUMB

This chapter has been headed as above because a number of the rules
and recipes given are simply practical expedients, not too closely
scientific. My endeavour has been to supply practical and useful
information in language as free from technicalities as