"..
NAVGAT
196
and the valley is drying up fairly well.
4. Tunnels:
built.
The Faces of No 1 Tunnel are being slowly
1
5.
efd
OLI J
dabw
0
5. Beacon Hill Tunnel: The average heading driven per
week is just over the seventy feet calculated on. A very
bad in-rush of water was encountered at the North Side which
at the first burst washed everything before it. The water
came out and is still coming with great violence as if under
a good head of pressure. Its volume would about fill an
eight inch diameter pipe at its worst. This impeded progress very much at the North Side until the heading was driven well
past it. For some time the water lept following up the
heading.
At
6. The widening out does not show much progress. the North Side the delay was caused by having to enlarge the
heading round the bottom of the shaft. This necessitated
closing down some of the enlargement faces so as to decrease
the amount of excavated material to be disposed of. At the
South Side the three remaining English miners are not working
quite so well as they might. They have been working on piece
work for some time in order to avoid claims for over time.
Two of them are not in good health and their mode of living
is not such as would give them a chance of being able to
stand the coming summer. I am taking the matter up with the
Government with a view to sending them home as though they
do not do anything bad enough to merit actual dismissal with
forfeiture of passage money I do not think it will pay to keep
them any longer. I have a good supply of Italian miners now
who give far less trouble than the Englishmen and seem to stand
the climate much better.
7. The lining also has dragged behind a bit but I
think that this will get along better now that the bottom of
-15-
the
Va