Chook's Tracks
This was acquired in 1896 by Broken Hill Mining Co Ltd of London which spent a lot of money opening up its mine and laying tramways and purchasing a battery in England. But before the latter was erected found there was no payable run of ore available in the mine and gave up in 1898. Their work was mainly of three drives No 2 146 ft and No 3 at 70ft below it.
In 1899 the claim and plant was sold at auction and was purchased by H H Adams on behalf of a syndicate which formed Tairua Broken Hills Goldmining Ltd. This company extended the low level adit and drove on to a large reef cut in No 2 level by the previous company but on which little work had been done. A reef 26 ft to 30 ft wide was found and the company erected the battery they had bought and treated 600 tons for 196 oz bullion valued at £287.
It was found only a small percentage of value was being extracted so a plant was put in for the treatment of sands by the cyanide process.
In 1900 2,218 tons crushed for 673 oz of bullion by amalgamation and 668 oz by cyanidation worth together £1,457.
The discovery of better values in the Blucher reef improved things somewhat and in 1909 the company paid dividends of £24,710.
By this time all good ore had been worked and the final figures were 31,379 tons of quartz yielding 51,012 ozs bullion valued at £89,036.
Other development work was carried out and other reefs found but nothing payable.
The mine is noteworthy from the fact that it was the only mine in the Hauraki district which paid dividends from quartz won from rocks of the "third period".
In 1911 the company reconstructed under the name Tairua Mines Ltd but did little or no work.
From: Gold Mines of the Hauraki District, By J F Downey.