Newsletter#5

Otago School of Mines & Metallurgy

1950s Graduates Newsletter October 2004 Editorial Another eventful year for us all no doubt. I suppose it has something to do with the aging process, but it seems, increasingly, that I have less energy and more demands on what I have. Still, I can’t blame anyone else. As the redoubtable Louise Haye used to say “You create your own future”. And I must say that I enjoy most of what I do. I guess the main event of the year for this group of old codgers was the Reunion in Dunedin during the last weekend in May. There are some notes below and some pictures sent separately. It was a great weekend, and ”rooly good” to catch up with lots of the graduates of our era. Many of the expatriates also used the trip to visit relatives and old friends throughout Godzone. One spin-off from the Reunion has been the emergence from the woodwork of a few members with whom we have not previously had contact. Michael Broad and Dave Buist being two such. Welcome aboard chaps! Michael has proved to be a source of much interesting material, especially in relation to the Capping Concert items of 1949 and 1950. Another outcome was further development of the proposal to perpetuate the name of the O.S.M. in a new chair of Earth Processes and the consequent interest of the Alumni & Development Office of the UO in sharing their newsletter about that with our members. After a bit of nagging, I am pleased to note that several fellows have sent in contributions to this newsletter. It’ll be nice for us all to see something from others than myself, Jack Mackie and Rex Guinivere. As I keep saying, it’s your newsletter, not mine. In order to keep the overall size of the file within reasonable limits I have had to edit these contributions a bit. Hopefully none of the contributors will think that I have omitted anything essential. So, this edition will come to you as attachments to two emails – one comprising the main body of text and graphics, and the other the UO Alumni newsletter two photograph files, one of Michael Broad’s photos and the other of photos of the reunion. The attachments to each will contain about 1MB of data, so will take a little while to download if you are on dialup. For those without email access I can post a CD with all the newsletters to date, including #5. I’ll phone those I know of to check their interest. If you know of anyone in a similar position, please copy this edition to a CD for them. If you don’t have a CD burner, let me know & I’ll do it. If the recipients don’t have a computer, they can take the CD to their local library and read it on their computer. Enjoy!!

John Neilson

18 October 2004

The Dunedin Reunion This momentous event was held from Friday 28th to Sunday 30th May 2004 at the “Executive Residence” of the UO, on the corner of Union and Forth Streets. It’s a three-storied hotel style of building on a small block, which was built about ten years ago to accommodate short-term post-graduate students of the Business School. It is still in excellent condition with very comfortable rooms and every convenience you could wish for, without being ostentatious. There are no regular dining facilities, but ordering-in or eating-out are simple matters. Bill Hunt was responsible for organizing the event, with more than a little help from Karen Warnaar of the Alumni & Development Office and Nicola Weir from the Residence. They did a marvellous job, everything running very smoothly and without a lot of protocol or fuss. The company comprised about 45 graduates and their partners &/or family members, including a few who lived or stayed with relatives away from the Residence. They came from America, Malaysia, Australia and South Africa, as well as all over Godzone of course. Friday evening was impromptu and casual, with grog available from the bar and light food bought in. Oysters! I had forgotten what Bluff oysters tasted like. Some latter-day O.S.M. graduates turned up to mix with us which was nice. On Saturday morning we rode in a bus to Karitane, about 40km north of Dunedin. Lunch was organized by Bill Parata and his family in their very pleasant, sunny home and garden. Bill is the widow of the so recently and suddenly deceased Gill Parata, the Alumni Officer who took the miners under her wing. Those who were at the Birthday Bash in 2000 will remember Gill. Apart from putting on a do for “Gill’s Miners”, the occasion was arranged to plant and dedicate a tree in the garden in memory of Gill. If you ask Rex Guinivere nicely he might send you a CD with a video of the whole show on it. He had also donated a miner’s lamp in her memory, which is on display in Alumni House at the university. Before the formal dinner at the Residence on Saturday night, John Hannah, the Professor of Surveying, gave a fascinating talk on the work of his department and the pracwork carried out by the students these days. Most of us were astounded by the things they get up to . . . . like trips to Antarctica drilling holes through the ice cap, and continental drift measurement. A long way from triangulating in the wilds of the North Taieri Ridge above the Tirahonga camp! He also spoke of NZ's isolated location on a major plate boundary and its geological complexity making it an ideal environment for carrying out investigations into earth processes. Such research could have global significance. The dinner was a great nostalgia kick because it was modelled closely on the faculty dinners at which we used to carouse in our student days, right down to the menu card and the toasts. The presence of the ladies and our “maturity” were probably the main factors in ameliorating our behaviour compared to carry-on of the good old days. Still it was a lot of fun, and the tucker was also better than I remember. The yarns were pretty good too. Our nonagenarian Emeritus Professor (J.B.M.) officiated in grand style, and also contributed to maintaining an appropriate level of decorum. Heavens, I even went to bed more-or-less sober!! On Sunday a lot of folk started heading off home or visiting relatives. Some hung about the residence before departing on Monday. Since I was born & raised in Dunedin, I spent the day visiting old haunts. I’d forgotten how bleak the weather can be in Dunedin’s winter. Brrrrrr!!!!

My How You’ve Changed ! By Time-traveller John Neilson If you haven’t been to Dunedin for a while you would be amazed at the changes to the central area. Students, many from overseas, now represent nearly 20% of the population which hasn’t changed much from 100,000. Forget about the pie-cart and Harry’s(?) café in the Octagon. Just about any cuisine in the world is catered for in the many cafes and restaurants. And the smallest and meanest looking of them has a liquor licence these days. Also there is a much greater variety of shops, albeit smaller and more specialized. No More “Arthur Darnit’s on the Shady Side of George Street”, or Brown-Ewings or the D.I.C. They’ve all been converted into something-elses . . . like small specialized boutiques ☺. And they’re open on Sundays! Remember when the town used to die at 9 o’clock on Saturday night ? No trams or trolley-buses every 10 minutes. Just diesel buses every hour. Everything is privatised, downsized and economised. However, I’m sure it’s not just Dunedin which has suffered this fate. The remaining picture theatres are much the same, the lovely old Regent being

devoted to live performances. There’s a nice Art Gallery in the D.I.C. building, the churches are still there in profusion. So is Robbie Burns, “with his back to the church and his face to the pub”. The railway station is beautiful on the outside . . . . and dead on the inside! The huge platform is like half a covered football field on Wednesday morning . . . . . . gloomy and silent. The only passenger trains are the tourist ones which run up the Tairie Gorge. The Early Settlers Museum has been modernised and greatly improved, and includes a comprehensive Family Historical section. It has absorbed the old Railway Bus Terminal. When you get away from the centre of town, nothing much has changed at all. The shops are mostly modernised, but all the old houses and schools and churches and buildings are just like they were 50 years ago. Except my old school (King’s High) which has been completely rebuilt in a modern style, and my old home which has been knocked over and replaced.

The Otago School of Mines Vintage 2003 Wine One of the creative little ploys Bill Hunt produced for the reunion was a specially labelled cabernet sauvignon from the most southerly vineyard in the world, “Black Ridge” near Alexandra. Here are the labels from the front and the back of the bottles. Pretty neat, eh! Nice drop too.

The Alumni & Development Office Newsletter Karin Warnaar and Peter Scott from this office have produced a newsletter which is mainly about the proposal, first mooted by Ahmad Azizuddin some years ago, to somehow perpetuate at least the name of the Otago School of Mines in the modern world of mining education. It has not been regarded as realistic to rebirth the O.S.M. because of the dramatic changes in technology of mining and associated disciplines since the 1950s. No jacks-of-all-trades as we were educated to be; everyone is a specialist of some sort today. But serious consideration has been given to creating an endowed chair in Earth Processes, as a means of enabling the Otago School Of Mines to live again in a sense. The newsletter is attached to this one. It is estimated that NZ2,000,000 will be needed to create the chair and its support facilities, and the government will match the funds raised $-for-$. So the university will need to find $1,000,000. Ahmad has kicked the procedure off with a very handsome $100,000 donation. From their newsletter, you will see that there are several good omens for the project.

The Next Reunion Ipoh 2006 In a wave of enthusiasm possibly generated by good food, good wine and good company, it was suggested at the dinner that another reunion should be held. The use of the sumptuous facilities of the “Clearwater” golfing resort at Ipoh, Malaysia were offered by Ahmad Azizuddin. Everyone thought that was a great idea. [Betcha didn’t know that the film “Anna & The King” was largely filmed there a few years ago, and many of the sets were still standing when we visited the resort in 2000 ._Ed] Having done such a wonderful job of organization for this reunion, Bill Hunt was unanimously elected to do it all again for 2006.

The “Shambles” As Murdoch Mackenzie Knew It Located at 546A on Great King Street and on the corner with King David Street, a mere three blocks from the University Campus in the 1950’s and now virtually in the middle of it, this was a unique flat. Who, I wonder named it? The name was an important part of its status at the University. It was a descriptive name and I suspect most new inmates tried hard to ensure that the reputation which gave it the name endured. Years after I graduated in 1960 I was in Manchester in the UK and noted an inner city suburb called “The Shambles” Did some one who had been to Manchester, perhaps in WW2, name this flat? In any event in the 1950’s it always seemed to have some Mining Students living in it. I moved into the four bedroom flat in 1959. Before me Bill Hogg and Jock Braithwaite had been lords of the manor. No doubt there were many other Miners living there before my memory ground zero date, and there were undoubtedly more including John Taylor after me. They will, I am sure, be enlightening you. A room at the Shambles, was in those days handed down from one “Miner” to another as a sort of “Rights of Passage”. It was an exceptionally sturdy building and stands still, looking capable of another 100 years. These days Squires Books inhabits the bottom storey. In my time downstairs was a storeroom which I never saw opened. Across the road on the opposite side of King David Street there is a pharmacy. In the 1950’s this site was a car yard run by “Brown Shirt “ who also affected a pork pie hat. He sold cars of very dubious character, recently resprayed and held together by substances which never originated in an automobile factory. No “Nice Motor” as described by Arthur Daly in the TV show “The Minders” ever plumbed the depths of Brown Shirt’s offerings. If the car yard across the road was shonky then the adjacent property on Great King Street was downright weird. It was a coal yard, owned by an absolute nut. Jock Braithwaite remembers him baying at the moon. I well recall in the year before I moved in, the coal merchant arriving at the front door during a noisy party to complain of the noise. He was told to stuff off and did so. Only to return with a sharp and evil axe demanding an axe fight to settle the issue. Bill Hogg was the spokesman for the Shambles and in a way that was Bill Hogg’s trademark he settled the issue and sent the coalman back home. My fellow inmates were Ahmad Mansuri ( Zig Zag by nickname, earned by drunken antics on the Zig Zag leading up to Arana Hall); Alan Taylor, a geochemist nicknamed “Beanpole” because of his stature and Jim Lowery. Jim was a geology student who was later to go to Antarctica with Bernie Gunn. I recall Bernie coming to the flat with his coiled up dog whips for the dog sledge expedition that he and Jim undertook in

Antarctica. Unfortunately they also used a Snow Cat one morning and went down a crevasse. Jim suffered fractures and frostbite and sadly lost feet. My nickname was “ Miss Molly” due to my addiction to playing at top volume Little Richard’s song “ Good Golly Miss Molly” I found this an excellent tune to which to heave around the lounge a piece of columnar basalt which I had brought back from the hills to the North of Dunedin . The lounge and the fireplace survived all of this. Parties were common at the Shambles. One night members of the visiting British Lions team turned up. A Lions winger named Jackson I recall well. Never a resident, but a frequent visitor, was a local Jackson, Ivan “Snatch” Jackson. Ivan was a colourful student in the Mining School in the late '50's. The Shambles was more than a home for a few Mining Students who happened to be living there at the time. It was also a “Party House” for all of the Mining Students. Meals at the Shambles were, in my time, a community affair. The four of us took turns to cook lunch and dinner, each taking a day from Monday to Thursday. Friday was beer at the pub and fish and chips. The pub was the Captain cook, two blocks South on Great King street. The fish and chips, battered saveloys etc came from the Speedy café. This was a little further south on George Street and run by a surly Chinese gentleman. These were the days of 6.00 pm closing but fortunately the proprietor of the Captain Cook had a flexible time scale. He was Phil Rushton, a former Light Weight Boxing champion. His ring skills ensured that the “Cook” was always violence free. Come 6.00 o’clock, those who wanted to stay on were herded into the back Ladies Bar. Often Phil’s brassy blonde wife served us there. When we wanted to leave Phil would take us to the door, look up and down the street, and if it was clear, and send us out. The Captain Cook was a favourite of the Miners and on some lunch times we would take down to it our one pint handles to practice for the annual drinking horn against the Dentals. Phil Rushton would fill the 12 ounce handles, we would line up kneeling at the bar, and with a stop watch in the hands of the coach we would drink the six handles down. I recall we did 11.8 seconds one day. Back to the meals at the Shambles. Saturday we always went to parties or else hosted one. Such was the alcohol consumption at these parties that I cannot recall the Saturday evening meal arrangements but I suspect they were minimal. Sunday we surfaced about 2.00 pm. Some one then cooked the weekend roast, a forequarter of mutton, value 2 shillings and sixpence. The cheapest roast known in the time. Sunday evenings we, together with those girlfriends who were still speaking to us, listened to the Goon Show or to Hancock’s Half hour. Ahmad Mansuri was a Malaysian and he cooked curries. These were very different from the insipid curries that were served in most of New Zealand at the time. I for one had never tasted chilli powder plus paprika until Ahmad served it up. His most economical curry was curried sardines with onions served on rice, it was great. My girlfriend loved it and some 30 years later, as my wife, she surprised me by asking “Can you cook us curried sardines like we used to have at the Shambles?” For some time we made home brew in a huge 25 gallon wooden keg. To keep the contents warm we half immersed a light bulb in the brew. After Alan Taylor had used chemistry school hydrometers to pronounce the brew ready for bottling we put in into empty Speight’s Special bottles with a raisin to add extra sugar. No batch ever survived long enough to reach its prime but many gave us a lot of fun at lunch time on Wednesday. The afternoon was sports afternoon and we felt it a good time to have a drink. But then, at “The Shambles” it was always a good time to have a drink Postscript. In May 2004 at a Mining Students reunion for those of us from the 1950’s and 1960’s I went back to the Shambles for the first time since I left it in Dec 1959. I peered through the door and saw the so familiar narrow staircase leading up from the street to a small landing a few feet above the street. I knew, but could not see, that the stairs up to the second floor lead to the bedrooms and the lounge. Those leading down from the landing lead to the kitchen, eating area and bathroom. I recalled how often I had rushed up those stairs from the street. Sadly I could not recall the time that I walked down them for the last time, to a taxi that would take me away from the Shambles, the University and Otago for 44 years. I wonder who lives there now and do they too have the parties, the excitement and the girlfriends that we used to have? NOTE: Richard Parata is working on a book about student flatting in Dunedin. If you can make a contribution, please email it to him : [email protected]

From the Friends of the ABC Newsletter Bill Harrison, 30 September 2003 “I have just returned from New Zealand and had to ask friends over there what had happened to the national broadcaster. I was dismayed to see how indistinguishable it is from the commercials. The standard of NZ television is truly appalling and should be a lesson to us all of the importance of maintaining the independence of our ABC.” – So much for corporatization! The ABC and the BBC are probably the two greatest broadcasting organizations in the world.__Ed.

Fossickers Intrude On Newcrest’s Golden Isle Sydney Morning Herald By Barry Fitzgerald 28 October 2003 “Garimpeiros” packing canvas sacks and shovels have swarmed on to Newcrest Mining’s freshly uncovered high-grade Toguraci gold deposit on the Indonesian island of Halmahera, forcing the Melbourne-based group to suspend development work at the jungle site. Up to 200 of the “unauthorised” miners moved on to the site once Newcrest had exposed the high-grade deposit by removing the 20 to 30 metres of waste or overburden that covers the 260,000 ounce-plus deposit. They have been filling their sacks and heading back to local villages to process the ore using rudimentary methods. Because much of the material removed is not ore but jungle dirt, Newcrest reckons they would be lucky to return 5oz of gold a day. The local market did not doubt the company and pushed the stock 14c higher to $11.98 in response to higher US dollar gold prices. Newcrest said it decided to suspend the operation for safety reasons as heavy earthmoving equipment operating amid hundreds of garimpeiros scuttling about without hardhats and safety boots was not an ideal mix.

Popups I know we don’t approve of popups on our computer screens, but I think you’ll like these ones: Bill Croxford I’ve forgotten who put me in touch with Bill, but it resulted in an exchange of emails last December. He sent me a very interesting and comprehensive potted history which is included below. Michael Broad An email arrived out of the blue in mid September asking about the newsletter. There followed numerous exchanges about photos of the Miners’ Ballet skits, of which more later. Meantime he mentioned this item of interest. In the Otago Daily Times of Wed. last (15 September), there was a great photo of the magnificent Knox College taken at night but floodlit. I copy from the caption. “The late David Tennent, a former student at the University of Otago School of Mines, had recently left $20,000 to the college in a bequest. Bruce Aitken, the college master, had suggested the bequest be used for lighting.” He said that Dave was a contemporary of his, and a good bloke. (Amen to that – Ed.). Also, he wanted to know if any members at the reunion were sporting their commemorative OSM ties of 1986. Dave Buist On the 8th of October this “pop(ped)up” in my inbox: “Today is my last day as Mayor of Papakura, a position I have held for the last four years. I may have time to devote to other activities from now on………...! I look forward to more of these scintillating communications. My home e-mail address is: [email protected] ” Welcome aboard David! Ray Gordon Through the wonders of modern electronics, I found Ray and sent him the previous editions of the newsletter. He is interested to know of any O.S.M. graduates in WA. Time to Brush Up Your Geology Sydney Morning Herald 15 May 2004 Flinders Ranges reveal new geological period (Ediacaran)

Layered rocks from South Australia's Flinders Ranges have become the reference site for the first new geological time period to be adopted by scientists in 120 years. The new period, known as the Ediacaran, recognises the unique fossils that differentiate it from younger time periods. The fossils include the most distant animal ancestors of humans, which existed more than 540 million years ago. Palaeontologist Jim Gehling says the period marks a revolution in the history of life. "Up until the Ediacaran the only kinds of fossils actually found were microbial fossils," he said. "From the Ediacaran we get the first large marine animals on earth preserved as fossils in these rocks”.

We’ve Come a Long Way – But We Still Have a Long Way To Go Fatal Error Left Miners At Mercy Of Landslide Sydney Morning Herald November 1 2003 By Matthew Moore, Herald Correspondent and Karuni Rompies in Jakarta The operators of the world’s richest goldmine had more than two days’ warning that a landslide was imminent before it arrived in a torrent of 2.5 million tonnes of rock and mud that killed eight workers. The managers at the Freeport-McMoRan company had wrongly calculated that the slide would be slow enough and small enough to stop on a 90-metre wide step cut into the wall above the workers they left at the bottom of the pit. Although heavy rain had fallen for five days, the managers did not realise how much water was trapped in the slope and that the debris would pour over the step onto the workers, according to information provided to the /Herald/ by investigators. Three weeks later, four bodies remain buried at the bottom of the pit, more than 4000 metres up in the mountains of Papua, just a few kilometres from the only glaciers in South-East Asia. Four bodies have been pulled out and five people are recovering from injuries, including Muhammad Samsuri, who is in a Townsville hospital bed after losing both legs. Among many of the workers at the Grasberg mine, 16 per cent owned by the Australian mining company Rio Tinto, there is deep concern about whether more should have been done to avoid the disaster. A week after the October 9 tragedy, the company’s chairman and chief executive, Jim Bob Moffett, sought to play down the size of the slide and its impact on production when he addressed financial analysts. “. . . We move 750,000 to a million tonnes a day and just to be straightforward with you if we had to focus all of our earthmoving equipment on this we could clean it up in three days. “ Although he promised Freeport would do what it could to find out what happened, he did not mention the data it already had that showed a slide was imminent. Because the south wall where the slide took place was always most at risk, the company had rigged it with more than a dozen extensometers - devices that measure the rate of movement. Every 20 minutes, any shift was recorded on a computer graph, and the results discussed at meetings twice daily. Dr Anthony Meyers, Australian liaison with the International Society of Rock Mechanics, said small movements were not something to worry about. The danger came if the rate of movement began to accelerate. In August and September the rate of movement began to increase from about 4 millimetres a day up to 8mm, and then 10mm before moving back down. The Grasberg mine’s operating procedures say that movement of more than 10mm a day means “possible pit slope failure”. In early October, the slope continued to pick up speed and by October 5 parts of it were moving at 20mm and 30mm a day. On October 7, two days before the slide, Freeport moved its stationary mining equipment on the 90-metre step out of the zone where it expected the slide to hit. But below the step, it was work as normal for the drivers of the 240-tonne trucks and the bulldozers, and mechanics. Peter Lilly, chairman of mining engineering at Curtin University, said such large loss of life was very rare in open-cut mines because slides can usually be predicted. Engineers monitored the weak spots and, if they started to move, managers moved workers out of the way. Freeport did not move its workers out of the path of the slope failure because it did not expect the slide to be so liquid. The seven piezometers it had in the slope to warn of a build-up of water were not in the right place to alert them of a “pocket” of water high up. Freeport had already mapped the water pockets in the area but was not worried about them filling up because they normally drained themselves. Given that history, the company could not have predicted what happened without monitoring those pockets. But now major changes, including the use of drainage systems, might be needed to keep water out before mining could resume.

When Latin Was The Key To Success Lingua Franca, ABC ClassicFM Saturday 27/09/2003 & 04/10/2003 For four hundred years, from the revival of classical learning during the Renaissance, up to the 1960s, far from being dead, Latin was spoken in every Catholic church and in nearly every school and university throughout the Western world. The reason? The belief - shared with the Renaissance humanists - in the power of Latin to inculcate classical or civilised values. Nick Hudson, starting school in England during the war years, soon found that Latin - not English - was the key to success. He took his first steps in Latin when he was nine. This very interesting two-part interview is too long to include here. But no doubt we all recall that in our youth, one could not study law or medicine without a working knowledge of Latin. The article puts me in mind of the old schoolboy lament that some readers may be familiar with : “Latin is a language as dead as dead can be. First it killed the Romans, and now it’s killing me!” A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald suggested that Latin is experiencing a resurgence in high schools.

Lincoln & Kennedy Abraham Lincoln was elected to congress in 1846. John Kennedy W8S elected to congress in 1946. AL was elected president in 1860. JFK was elected president in 1960. Both were particularly concerned with civil rights. Both wives lost their children while living in the White House. Both were shot on a Friday. Both were shot in the head. Now it gets really weird Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy. Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln. Both were assassinated by Southerners. Both were succeeded by southerners name Johnson, Andrew Johnson who succeeded Lincoln was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson who succeeded JFK was born in 1908. John Wilkes Booth who assassinated Lincoln was born in 1839. Lee Harvey Oswald who assassinated JFK was born in 1939. Both assassins were known by their three names. Both names are composed of fifteen letters. Now hang onto your seat Lincoln was shot at the theatre named "Ford", Kennedy was shot in a car called "Lincoln" made by "Ford". Lincoln was shot in a theatre and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse. Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran and hid in a theatre. Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials. And here's the Kicker A week before Lincoln was shot, he was In Monroe, Maryland. A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.

Osti The Ice Man Ice Mummy Otzi's Steps Traced The Scotsman Friday 31 October 2003 Rhiannon Edward SCIENTISTS believe they may have tracked down the home of "Otzi", the 5,200-year-old frozen mummy found in the Alps 12 years ago. Analysis of Otzi’s teeth and bones indicates that he probably lived his whole life within 40 miles of the glacier which formed his icy tomb. The evidence suggests he may have been born in what is now the Italian Tyrol village of Feldthurns, about 30 miles from the spot where he perished. Otzi’s mummified body was discovered sticking out of melting snow near the mountainous border between Austria and Italy in 1991. Scientific studies have revealed his age - 46 - the state of his health, details of his DNA, what he ate, and that he died after being hit by an arrow. However, his birthplace and where he lived have remained a mystery until now. A team of experts led by Wolfgang Muller, from the Australian National University in Canberra, attempted to fill in the gaps about Otzi’s life with some forensic detective work. Chemical signatures from the iceman’s teeth, bones and intestines were compared to those in the soil and water of the surrounding region. Similarities between the isotopes - varying atomic versions of elements, such as oxygen - yielded valuable clues. The isotopic hallmarks of a particular area are transferred to the body through consumption of food and drink. They indicated that Otzi grew up in the Eisack valley, in the southern Tyrol, then spent time as an adult in the mountains of lower Vinschgau. Finally, he set off on his last journey to the Otz valley where his body was found. Writing in the journal Science, the researchers said they had identified Feldthurns as a strong candidate for Otzi’s birthplace. An archaeological site there had revealed a standing stone dating from the same era. The site also yielded the best match for radioactive strontium and lead isotopes between Otzi’s teeth enamel and local soils.

The Otago School Of Mines & Metallurgy Brass Plaque On the Saturday morning of the May reunion, before heading off to Karitane, we repaired to the steps of the O.S.M. building for an “official” group photo opportunity, just like the faculty photos of old ☺

We couldn’t help but notice that the plaque no longer adorned the building. Some time later Murdoch McKenzie started an email debate about it’s fate, which developed into a discussion about its future.

Murdoch McKenzie: I was sad to see, at our recent get together, that the brass OSM plaque was no longer at the top of the stairs to the old OSM building. I was also concerned that when we are all gone there will be little left to show that this building once was a vital part of the University and that its staff and students brought credit to both the University and to the City of Dunedin. My own grandchildren visited the University from Perth this month and ,without my directions, would not have known that the School existed. It was an important institution, it contributed to the character of the University and it deserves something which will endure when all of its graduates are gone. I had in mind a plaque which in a way mirrors the one Jack Mackie placed on the School of Surveying. It would detail the dates of the school, maybe indicate how many graduates passed through and briefly indicate its status. I first addressed my interest in all of this to Mick Buckenham and he has responded with more that I could have hoped. He has located the original OSM plaque we all remember so well. It is up in Auckland and he will personally collect it from there. He suggests that we have a second plaque compatible with the original made which details the dates of the School and that both be re-mounted at the front door of the building. I think this is excellent. Mick has also found out that other memorabile, photos etc have been returned from Auckland to Otago but that they are not in the Hocken Library. He will pursue this. I will also write to the Universities A new plaque etc will cost some money. I will happily contribute to this. No doubt others will also. I suggest that Mick tell us how much he needs and where to send the money. Finally we should have an unveiling. Can I suggest a halftime break between the May 2004 and the 2006 Malaysia get together. Say Feb - May 2005 .I would like that and try to make it. Lets try for Feb. in the better weather!! Michael Buckenham: The plate which is heavy steel (I have not conducted a metallurgical test) and chrome plated 23x37cms in size is in my hands again. As you may remember it has the Mining logo and in big capitals THE OTAGO SCHOOL OF MINES engraved. In my opinion there is room for suitably engraving the OSM years at OU viz 1879 to 1986 when we moved to Auckland. Other dates to reflect on are: 1869 U of O established 1871 Courses in Mining commenced 1879 Mining School formally established 1909 Mining School Building opened As an option an additional plate could be cut with some of these dates and milestones but in my opinion if relocated on our building the age and occupation of the building is the most appropriate period to record. Should this suggestion of adding dates only is agreeable I will undertake the addition being entered in an appropriate and cosmetic way [The issue of what to add to it and how, is still unresolved – let Murdoch &/or Michael know what you think. _Ed.]

Workers Shafted In Deadly South African Goldmines By Gavin du Venage, Johannesburg 14 August 2004 “I SOMETIMES think if we go much further we will see the devil. You can’t go much deeper than this,” says Johann Meintjies as he takes his daily elevator ride to work, 3km straight down into the earth. The trip, down the main shaft of Kloof goldmine, west of Johannesburg, takes an age but for Meintjies, and the 50 or so men crammed into the tiny, rattling cage, it is time for contemplation. “It is not a safe place to be, this far underground, but it is better than going hungry,” says Meintjies, to murmurs of agreement from the men around him. Standing close together in the tiny steel cabin, the walls of the shaft rushing past, the men know that the days of goldmining are numbered. This month, some of the world’s largest gold producers—who provide a third of the world’s mined gold each year—released financial results that analysts say show the 120-year-old industry is on its knees. “Retrenchment scares me more than a rockfall,” says Meintjies. “At least you might survive and go home to your kids. If we lose our jobs, we go home to our kids and tell them they must eat less.” Ten years ago the goldmining industry employed almost half a million men but a steady campaign to reduce costs has seen jobs cut to less than 190,000. “This is the worst I have ever seen it,” says Nick Goodwin, gold analyst at T-Sec Securities in Johannesburg. Of the 31 goldmining companies in existence, 23 are now making a loss. The reason for the reversal of fortune is simple, he says. Today the country’s currency, the rand, is one of the world’s best performing against the dollar; it gained 49 per cent against the greenback in the past year. As the mines pay their costs in rands, but earn profits in dollars from exports, their earnings have collapsed. As their profits erode their investments in new shafts halt. “All the groups are running at a loss and borrowing to fund capital expenditure. This is a sure way to go bust,” says Goodwin. The latest to report, Harmony, one of

the world’s largest gold producers, revealed a $US86 million ($120 million) loss in its last reporting quarter alone. Others are in a similar predicament. The only way to reduce costs is to cut jobs. Two weeks ago Harmony non-executive director Ted Grobicki outraged unions when he told a conference in Australia that workers would be axed to protect profits. Since deep-level mining was invented in South Africa in 1890, more than 70,000 men have died in the pursuit of the precious metal. At least 1 million more have suffered permanent injury, according to statistics provided by the nation’s Chamber of Mines. Today, hi-tech safety gear and a military structure to ensure almost fanatical obedience to procedure underground has reduced casualties to a trickle. For men such as Meintjies, the fear of being crushed by a rockfall or being caught in an underground explosion has receded. Instead, they worry that some day they will return home and have to tell their families they no longer have a job.

Notes From Graduates Denys Harraway I have had some time for reflection lately (mid September ) having recently undergone bypass surgery on a piece of my cardiac plumbing known as the widow maker. That is the little bit feeding the two arteries which supply blood to the left ventricle. .Recovery is slow. I'm told I now have the pump of a 45 year old but some mornings it feels as if it is in a 90 year old body! Murdoch McKenzie For much of this year I have been practicing metallurgy on and off. Much of my work has been on the CVRD Vermelho project. CVRD are Brazil’s largest company and the largest iron ore producers in the world. They have a nickel laterite project called Vermelho (Red earth). I am the external consultant for the nickel and cobalt refinery. I actually hold a US patent on the entire circuit but I don’t get rich out of that. I had to sell my rights to my employer at the time the patent was filed. This was Henkel (now Cognis) and they paid me one dollar. This is the minimum that you can transfer the rights to a US patent for. They paid me with a silver dollar in a presentation case. I would have rather have had a suitcase of dirty $US bills. The patent has certainly ensured a lot of LIX® Reagent sales for Cognis. The Vermelho project is at feasibility status. The study is being done by Minproc Engineers in Perth, the testwork by Lakefield Ore test in Perth. The project is 45,000 tpa Nickel and about US$ 750 million. I guess a decision to go ahead or not will be made by Feb 05. CVRD may elect to stop at the mixed hydroxide product stage. In which case I will be out of a job. To date the pilot plant has made good, LME grade 7 day cathode. From muddy rock through to metal. It keeps me off the streets, out of the pub and interested. I doubt it will make me rich and famous but if they go ahead and if they make nickel metal it may be fun starting up the plant. Michael Broad Dave Tennent said in an earlier edition that Peter Presland was the only one with a car; from my memory it was a later Morris 8. It has brought back memories. I remember being in it with a number of others, possibly delivering Dave to Knox College. There followed a wild ride down the Opoho hill at something like 60mph, with me wondering if he could stop at the bottom. I wasn't scared quite to death, but not far off it! And who could forget Sid Jarvis! He had a very nice wife (Priscilla) and a big dog. All of them fitted in their little 1930s Austin 7 tourer. They lived in Queen St at the top of quite steep Pitt St and I don't think it ever failed them. [In relation to the following items, check the Broadpix.pdf file of photos, emailed separately._Ed] The bloke with the bandanna, left front, in the Stewart Island photo is George Hutchinson. George was renowned for his strength. It is reputed that he lifted off the deck a bucket ladder pin on the Austral dredge at Lowburn. Having worked on that dredge Nov/Dec 1948 I know what an impressive feat that was. George was a lone adventurer. I heard that around 1949/50 he canoed or rafted down the Clutha, from Wanaka to Balclutha. No one really heard about it, absolutely no publicity, the venture was just his own personal challenge. The 1949 Capping Procession Float Photo - I just don't remember what years there were floats; I don't recall being involved with them at all. I was in the Capping Band myself, I'm fairly sure I didn't miss a year, first on clarinet and later trombone. We were quite a reasonable band in those years, but it went downhill in later times. About this year we went along to the 4ZB studios for a recording session, and the result came out on a 78rpm record. I still have mine carefully guarded. About six years ago Jim Sullivan, an old identity and historian on National Radio, interviewed me regarding Capping Bands and borrowed my record to transfer to modern media. The whole lot went to air on his Sunday national programme "Sounds Historical", and I was sent a tape of the result which was good. One year we even got on the stage at Joe Brown's Town Hall Dance, and played for about two dances. We had a few really good players such as Lex Knight (clarinet), Mac McDougall (drums) and the older brother

of Peter Presland — Dr Presland was a House Surgeon at the time, and a great jazz trombonist. [Lex Knight's band played for a lot of the student hops in Allen Hall. Mac in later life was farming journalist for the Otago Daily Times but sadly died before his time]. John Neilson More “car” stories. They used to reckon DRK Smith had an old bull-nosed Morris, and that you could tell what its principal use was by the footprints upside down on the dashboard! Bruce Pickering used to tell some hair-raising stories about Valentine, Billinghurst and others getting into madcap adventures in cars. After a Dental Faculty Dinner at which Peter McIndoe & I were O.S.M. representatives, about 11pm, they dumped us both in his little Austin 7 and set it off down the hill. Fortunately Pete could drive asleep &/or drunk. I woke up cold and hung-over in the car, in his garage about 7am. He’d been running on “auto-pilot” and just gone off to bed, forgetting about me in the passenger seat! Frank Graveson I resolved some time ago to write an article on a low tech task which contrasts markedly with the work that so many of our graduates have undertaken.This will now happen. I have been encouraging John Taylor to write a memoir about his banking experiences flying around the world arranging finance for mega projects involving $$ numbers that I can scarcely comprehend. An extra nudge from you could help, especially as he has just been in hospital having both his knees replaced, and he will have the time during his recuperation.On another subject, Bill Sparrow turned 80 in August.

A Dissertation on Comminution By Rex Guinivere Don’t you love that word? Comminution. It rolls off the tonque so much more sweetly than “crushing and grinding”. It means so much more too. It doesn’t just speak to the mundane matters of making big rocks into very small ones. Oh no, it speaks to the very science of creating area. It doesn’t just speak the test of screen analysis for the product. It goes deeper than that. It speaks to how many square centimeters of area one has created per gram. It speaks of tests like Blane. But more than that, it speaks to how much energy one has used to create that area-a whole tennis court of area for how many kilowatt-hours and in such a small quantity, a mere handful! I’m sure that Hugh Muir and Bryce Russell and Mr. Rogers must have used the term but all I remembered from their lectures was “crushing and grinding” and “speiss”, which sounds edible, and “matte flotation”- why would anyone want to float mats, you just beat them to clean them! Perhaps they never did. Perhaps they were concerned about using such an implicitly sexual word as “comminution” is. We were still post-adolescent, after all. Perhaps they had already heard the joke about the teenager being interviewed by the psychiatrist. You know, the one where the doctor scribbles on a pad and asks the kid what it makes him think of-it was a rorsarch scribble, of course-and the kid replies “sex”. No matter what the doctor draws the kid says “sex”. Finally the doctor looks very concerned and tells the kid “Son, you’re sick” “Me!” yelps the kid “it’s YOU who’s drawing the dirty pictures!”.......Comminution. Hmmmmmmm. Well, I digress! My first real introduction into the black art of crushing and grinding was in Broken Hill, probably in 1957 or so. I’m sure OUSM must have tried but I was a Mining student, after all. So here I am working at the South Mine and I attend an AIME meeting at which a chap named Graeme (?) Calcott presents a paper on the “efficiency” of the grinding process.( I don’t think he used the word comminution but he may have. He was in the right comapany for using that sort of word, of course). He worked in a BHP lab and they had determined that the amount of power used compared to the amount of surface produced in the average grinding mill (he had a formula for how much energy it took to produce area by breaking up rocks) was about 3.5%! Maybe 4%! This caused an immediate uproar and calls for “Lynch, lynch!” from the assembled mill superintendents. The chap from the North Mine was the loudest. “You can’t tell me my operation is only 3.5% efficient!” he roared. Others yelled in the same vein. Calcott stood there looking totally bewildered. I sat there muttering, “you silly bastards. He isn’t talking about you, he’s talking about the design of the equipment. I carried on in Mining for some years and didn’t have anything to do with crushing and grinding. Bukit Besi had only a Superior 36x60 gyratory primary crusher and a couple of AC cone crushers that fed the wash plant drums-no grinding so not, really, comminution except in the most minor sense. We were trying to produce -1” material for the Japanese blast furnaces.

My first venture into process engineering was on the Glover Lead Smelter for Asarco and, again, no “comminution” really. I don’t classify spike roll crushers breaking up sinter machine product as comminution, though perhaps it is, strictly speaking. I first really encountered comminution on the Churchrock Uranium project for United Nuclear. In those days the Atomic Energy Commision was the sole buyer for yellowcake. The need for nuclear material for the Manhattan project had resulted in the development of the solvent extraction process to leach uranium salts out of the ore. This was performed by the use of either sulfuric acid or sodium carbonate. Leaching does not require the separation of the minerals from gangue as is required for flotation. Depending upon the leaching power of the solvent, residence time can make up for high particle size since the solvent will penetrate the gangue particle as long as there is some exposure of the mineral. Once the uranium is leached the solution is clarified then mixed with the organic in mixer settlers to transfer the uranium ions to an organic which is then stripped by altering the pH by adding HCl, if sulfuric acid has been used in the dissolution of the uranium, so that the uranium goes back into solution but in far greater strength so it can be precipitated by ammonia and recovered in a centrifuge. Now, what does all this have to do with comminution? Well, to start with, the AEC paid for the yellowcake with a price that covered the capital cost of the plant. As a control on their expenditures and the plant’s efficiency the operator had to install a very elaborate sampling system. This started with an expensive crushing and sampling system before the ore was fed to the grinding mill. These primary-secondary-grinding steps were known as an ABC system. At the time I became involved in metallurgical projects involving hydrometallurgy Pima had perfected its semi-autogenous grinding system at their copper concentrator in Arizona. The iron ore industry had been using autogenous grinding for years. Iron ore comminution was fully autogenous after it passed the primary crusher. The high specific gravity of iron ore made this possible. Autogenous grinding required that large pebbles of ore be fed into the grinding mill which had no grinding media. The large rocks continuously fed to the mill serve as grinding media-hence the name “autogenous”. Most other ores have a specific gravity only some 50-60% of that of iron ore.In addition,when they are placed in a slurry the bouyancy factor is greater because of their greater specific volume. So they don’t work very well as pebble mills, although there are some special applications.What Pima did was test grinding using a very small ball load so that the grinding was semi-autogenous. It was very successful and opened the path to AC grinding systems which required no secondary-tertiary crushing circuit. I recall being at Pima one time after they had perfected their method of SAG milling. We were in the control room and the Chief Metallurgist took me over to one part of the board without actually looking at the board, he knew it so well. “Rex” he said, pointing towards a hole in the board, “this is the absolutely essential instrument to make the method work”. “Ahhhh” I said “There’s nothing there Paul, what is it?” He looked aghast at the hole in the board and demanded of the operator, “Where’s the meter?” “I don’t know. Electrical took it away a couple of months ago for repair”. I never did find out what the hell this “essential” meter was or did-but it didn’t appear to be that essential. It was a somewhat embarassing moment. So in my early days in hydro-metallurgical projects I came up against the black “art” of comminution when SAG milling was replacing the ABC circuit of antiquity. The first Churchrock project consisted in choosing equipment from the exisiting plant for carbonate leach at Ambrosia Lake, New Mexico to use in the new acid plant at Churchrock, way to the west near Gallup, New Mexico. The AEC was still in charge of uranium sales so the plant had to have an elaborate crushing system to produce the particle size required by the statistical parameters of obtaining a meaningful sample of a 2,000tpd operation. United Nuclear used a Canadian consultant named A.H.Ross& Associates. The only system they would talk about was the ABC system. They would have nothing to do with SAG milling. As Kaiser became one of the major EPCM (Engineering, Procurement and Construction Managment) contractors we kept running into A.H. Ross and having great arguments about using a SAG mill. There were numerous reasons for choosing a SAG mill in the circumstances of the uranium industry by this time. Firstly, the AEC, from the time of my first project as PM at Conquista in South Texas for Conoco was no longer in the yellowcake buying business so there was no need for an elaborate sampling system. Secondarytertiary crushing was no longer required. Secondly, the environmental conditions for operation of hazardous ores made dust collection a major capital and operating cost area. SAG milling eliminated dry crushing after the primary crusher. Thirdly, the application of SAG milling made the equipment and construction costs much lower than for the ABC system. None of these reasons had any effect on Al Ross and his Associates! Well, not for several years when, during some discussion with a client, he had the chutzpa to lecture me that the baseline against which to measure a grinding circuit was the SAG mill-ball mill circuit. He was lucky that I was so amused by his

outrageous, deceitful attitude that I didn’t deck him! SAG milling with a 6%+- ball charge became “state of the art” in the US uranium business largely because the ores were of sedimentary origin-which is why the oil companies held most of the uranium ore reserves that they had discovered when drilling through them looking for oil and gas. The texture of the ores usually required little more than fine crushing to 28# and a SAG mill is, really, a special type of crusher as it produces very little in the way of fine material, as the copper concentrating metallurgist would be looking for. Concentrators operate in the 80% passing 65# and finer, mostly these days to -200# or even finer. That’s 74 micron size versus 590 for 28#. The Pima work blossomed in the copper industry as well where huge mills are employed. Some of these mills are so large that it became un-economic to make pinion gears to transfer the equally large kW’s required to drive them. These large mills have the motors wrapped around them! The mill carries the rotor poles. It’s only when one is dealing with primary uranium ores as in Australia and Canada and South Africa that ball milling is required. In South Africa much of the uranium comes as a co-product of the Rand gold mining industry. It is in South Africa where SAG milling implies a completely different type of mill as compared to North American useage. In South Africa a semi-autogenous mill is a tube mill. It is longer than it is in diameter. In the US a SAG mill may be 28ft. in diameter but only 8ft long. The ends are two cones joined by a short barrel section. In South Africa it may be 30ft long but only 14ft in diameter. In South Africa the ore is kept in the mill until it is small enough to pass through the end plate which is a perforated plate with small tapered holes less than 1.5cm in diameter in some cases. The fine material passes out from the pool but the coarse material is assisted by means of a rotating spider that lifts the larger pieces and increases the chances of their being discharged by carrying them across the perforated plat So we have a very different meaning to the term SAG mill but it goes much further than the difference in the shape of the mill. It also goes to differences in the kWHrs/ton that is needed to produce the “percent passing” criterion. This is, perhaps, the crux of the “black art of comminution”. Bryce and Hugh may have introduced me to the question of grinding power. If so, I wasn’t paying attention. We may even have performed a grinding test-did we? Any professor of metallurgy will tell you that he can put your sample in one of his little mills-about 18”x10” diameter-and do a power-draw test to your prescribed %passing and that’s all there is about it. As a matter of fact, on the McLaughlin project, one of our directors was Doug Fuerstenau, Professor of Metallurgy at Berkeley. He told me that when I was discussing the problem of choosing mill horsepower. But, as I responded, I couldn’t provide samples for his testing of ALL the ore. The McLaughlin ore power draw , according to tests by Hardinge, varied from 12kWHrs/ton to 28kWHrs/ton. Furthermore, it was impossible, from the extensive ore reserve data -they drilled 450 core holes into an orebody about 1.5 miles long by 0.5 miles wide and only some 1,000ft. deep-to mine so as to maintain an “average” work index, an average payable grade and an autogenous sulfur grade for the autoclaves to work all at once. There aren’t many things one can “optimise” at the same time. One is forced to make choices that are less than “optimum. The laws of economics govern not metallurgy. Actually, I considered his statement rather fatuous. He had obviously never specified a mill nor evaluated the wildly different bids that grinding mill vendors will offer from the one request for bid. With respect to the term kWHrs/ton one has to be very careful what one is talking about. Some interlocutors mean 80% passing, some mean 85% passing. Some refer only to the mill itself and its kilowatts of power. Some include the crushing system. The South Africans include all the lighting for the grinding area-and why not? You just have to be sure you are all speaking of the same thing. Then you have to decide what “efficiency” you are going to obtain in the system, and I don’t mean Calcott’s definition. Is it going to be a 0.6 divider or a 0.65 or what? When you decide what number to use you have to examine the downstream equipment for sizing. If you design for 28kWHrs/ton at 3,000tpd and the feed is running 14kWHrs/t ore the mill will overwhelm the downstream equipment capacity with twice the product it can handle!-mill superintendents loathe cutting back on capacity. So how do you decide what to use when the variation is very wide? You use a scientific wild arsed guess!- and hope for the best when the mill starts up and the miners send the ore to the mill. In the case of McLaughlin we had mostly “in the ballpark” bids but one vendor had an “authority” who insisted we required only half the 6,750HP we eventually installed in the SAG and ball mills-1,750hp and 5,000hp respectively. What we did was specify mills that would permit the 3,000tpd through-put with a 10% allowance when the ore was around the average in hardness. In operation the mill through-put dropped to around 2,700tpd when very hard ore was being processed and went to 3,600tpd with the softest ore. Overall the mill averaged the desing 3,000tpd. The mine carried out an extremely detailed blasting procedure based upon drill- hole assays. The grade- control geologists used colored flags and ribbons to actually outline the different types of ore in a bench blast. The blaster calculated the powder factor so as to cause minimal movement in the blast. The shovel operator loaded out the “cells” and informed the truck driver which place to dump the rock. This method

controlled the sulfur and gold grade and allowed for some sorting by rock type. Despite such an elaborate system the rock was moved for 40¢ per ton. The most interesting case I was ever involved with was the choice of mills for Troy, a copper concentrator for Asarco in Idaho. The Troy ore was incredibly hard. I don’t recall what the work index was but it must have been in the high twenties. The ore was a quartzite that was so hard it rang like a bell if it was hit with a hammer.The late Bill Swett, the VP of Engineering for Asarco out of their Salt Lake City office had been around for years and knew his stuff as a metallurgist in concentrators and smelters. Asarco had mills all over the world. At the time it was a major shareholder in Mt.Isa. They had performed their usual work index testsand didn’t know what to use for the mills. There was nothing but arguments between all the mill “experts” available to the project from their own people and ours (Kaiser Engineers) plus outside consultants. Autogenous, no semi-autogenous, no standard ABC and on and on for weeks including visits all over the place to discuss the choice with other operating company “experts”. After all this Bill came into my office and said “ Rex, I am so damned embarrassed! We’ve spent about $250,000 and all this time and we’re right back where we started!” Several years later, when I was with Homestake and at an AIME meeting somewhere I ran into Jack Bingham, the Manager at Troy. Well, actually he came right across the room to have a piece of me. He was somewhat in his cups. “You people really screwed up the choice of that mill at Troy. I can hardly keep up with the maintenance. The liner plates loosen up and the bolts fall out. I’ve never seen anything like it!” He then left for another drink, leaving me wondering why he thought we had had much to do with it. Black art, indeed! Very hard ore and all choices bad. But Doug could have told me exactly how much power I needed! Today there is little change in the actual “efficiency” of regular comminution equipment . Attention to mill liner technology and gear profiles have added some fractional improvements. The major change has been in the introduction of high pressure roll crushers which have product profiles similar to those of grinding mills with a large portion of the product in the -200# area. Professor Fuerstenau was associated with this development. I believe one of the major applications of this very expensive equipment is in the diamond industry where it successfully crushes the kymberlite gangue without also crushing the diamonds. I’m not sure how, perhaps one of us can enlighten me? Bryce? Mick? ` There are also two new crushing units that claim to produce fine product. One of these is according to a patent held by Terra Systems of Utah. They use a low pressure blower to fire the rock at a ceramic plate. I have been unable to obtain any data from them. Another is a modification of the New Zealand designed vertical impact crusher by the man who invented Tang (honestly) which uses rock-on-rock breakage and claims to obtain a high proportion of fines. Again, there are no operating data available. I have a drawing of the unit and am at a loss to see the difference betrween it and the New Zealand equipment which has more or less totally replaced the old tried and true Superior units for product in the gravel business because it produces a very cubical product that is ideal for asphaltic concrete. In closing this little dissertation I hope some of our colleagues out there may rise in protest at some of my comments-I’m not a metallurgist, after all. Then perhaps we may have some correspondence to enliven the e-mails! But I shall always consider comminution a black art, not a science. Still, I’m not as obtuse as that Mine Manager (a mining engineer) in Queensland years ago who told his shareholders they were highgrading the top of the orebody and in a year or two would have to add a crusher so as to double the ore throughput. I guess he hadn’t paid much attention to his metallurgical lectures either! Rex Guinivere

Farmers Have Gutsful Of Flatulence Tax Sydney Morning Herald 5 September 2003 Farmers drove a vintage tractor and led a cow up the marble steps of New Zealand’s Parliament yesterday to protest against government plans to tax their animals’ gas emissions. Waving banners, about 1000 farmers some leading cows and dogs, others driving tractors and other farm equipment - chanted “we won’t pay” what has been dubbed the “flatulence tax.” They presented a petition signed by 65,000 to Parliament opposing a planned greenhouse gas research levy on farm animals. Two cows wearing blankets emblazoned with the words “Not Guilty” led the procession through the centre of the capital. The levy would raise about $NZ8 million ($7.2 million) a year for research aimed at cutting the methane output of farm animals. Methane belched by the country’s farm herds makes up more than half the total greenhouse gas produced by New Zealand each year. Farmers cheered and whistled as one of the cows was led up the steps, and a farmer lawmaker drove a 50-year-old Fordson tractor up about 20 steps towards the Parliament’s stately doorway. Tom Lambie dairy chief of the farmer lobby group Federated Farmers said the rally and the petition

were “tangible evidence” of opposition to the proposed levy. “There will be no tax on emissions” he vowed, to loud cheers. Climate Change Minister Pete Hodgson told farmers the Government reserved the right to impose the levy if farmers “failed to step forward with a package” of funds to support research into cutting greenhouse emissions. He said the two sides had resumed talks in recent days to find the funding needed from other sources to avoid the tax. North Island dairy farmer Grant Simpson said there would be “no compromise” on the levy plan, rejecting moves by farmer leaders and the Government to find an alternative funding source. “We will not tolerate it, we’ve had a gutsful,” he added. Which reminds me, have you heard of . . . .. . .

Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader This indispensable adjunct to bathrooms modern and old has been around for quite some time, and is now into its (at least) 16th edition. After picking up the 2nd edition in a remainder sale, I got a friend in U.S.A. to buy me the 16th edition. And just recently I discovered a two-volume Australian edition at half the price! The blurb declares “Uncle John goes down under to get to the bottom of things”. While there is a great deal of “lavatory humour” it’s not the sort we usually think of. Numerous punny references, all in good taste, to all aspects of the throne and its surroundings. Offerings range from pithy one-liners at the foot of each page (e.g. jockeys in America are the only US athletes allowed to bet on themselves), through short articles or lists (e.g. Flubbed Headlines; How We Got the Dollar) to articles several pages long for those extended sojourns. The general tone is one of good natured humour. You can “read all about it at” their website: http://www.bathroomreader.com/home.html . The Australian edition still has much american material in it but includes enough Australian stuff to justify the title.

China Puts Boom Into Iron And Steel Sydney Morning Herald - By Liza Kappelle - Date: October 21 2003 China’s insatiable appetite for iron ore and steel is powering a global iron ore boom that will send prices surging in 2004 and keep them rising for five years. A report by AME Mineral Economics says iron ore demand, now running at about 1.1 billon tonnes a year, will rise by more than 250 million tonnes a year by 2008 because of demand for the metal from China where stainless steel has become a status product. The researchers said China’s infrastructure and manufacturing expansion would catapult Asian steel output to almost match the rest of the world’s entire production by 2008. “Both directly and indirectly, ‘dragon power’ will be responsible for most of the growth in iron ore seaborne trade, iron ore demand, and global iron ore production, as the burgeoning Chinese economy draws heavily on domestic and international steel supply,” AME says in its latest report. “Producers are scrambling to expand capacity, consumers are racing to secure supply, and the industry is attracting new players like moths to a candle flame.” The 9 per cent price increases won by iron ore producers this year would be matched by similar increases in 2004. These prices were the highest in a decade but global iron ore consumption would increase by more than 6 per cent in 2003 and would continue strongly over the next five years, the report said. The surging price had sparked new interest in mine and infrastructure projects while the top three producers, Brazil’s CVRD, and Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, had brought forward projects to exploit the market. Steel producers in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan were benefiting from the upsurge in Chinese demand, as was India in both steel and iron ore exports. AME said market tightness could not be relieved before 2006 and only then if the big Australian and Brazilian producers implemented most of their development plans and new mines started producing. Without the additional production, and increased iron ore industry expansion in India and Russia and its “independent states”, the market could fall into serious undersupply, AME warns. “Much of this rosy outlook is contingent on China sustaining a frenetic pace of industrial and infrastructure development. “If China falters or plateaus - always a risk with such high growth rates - the pressure on iron ore supply will quickly evaporate and producers will have to slow or defer their ambitious expansion plans.”

Remember the Drinking Horn? Ah yes, the Drinking Horn. Every year (about now ??) the O.S.M. and the Dental School held a competition. A rugby game in the afternoon,and the Drinking Horn in the evening - also know in some circles as a "boatrace". Just in case you’ve forgotten: The general idea was for two teams of six (the “Flying Squads”), kneeling at either side of a table, to drink down, in turn (#1 to #6) a 12-ounce handle of that awful beer Speights used to make, and we used to pretend to like. Probably because we didn't know any better. I had entered the Mining School determined not to drink any alcohol, knowing the reputation of the miners, and having an alcoholic father. I was persuaded to try out in the student common room, using water, and was found to be a very proficient performer. Which started me on the slippery slope to perdition! I think my best performance was a tad under 2 seconds for the 12oz. But the Champion-of-Champions was Charlie McFee, who could down one in about 1.2 seconds. Instead of swallowing the stuff like everyone else, he just opened his throat and sucked it in like a suction pump! I believe he died quite young, but probably from unrelated causes. The event was usually held in the old Oddfellows(?) Hall in Fredrick Street, just down from George Street, as was many another grand booze-up, like the First term Welcome to the Charlady, The End of Term Farewell to the Laboratory Technician . . . well, you get the idea; any excuse was better than none! The small hall was packed to the rafters with students from both faculties and their girl friends, plus of course the Home Science girls and a few brave staff members. One story I remember well was Jack Mackie's wife Sue, in the excitement of the great event, falling off the bench they were standing on for the view. She appeared to have been knocked unconscious. Jack was leaning over her on the floor saying "Speak to me Sue!". After some anxious moments Sue opened one eye and said "Gimme a beer". Rex Guinivere recalls that the rugby match was accompanied by a 5-gal keg on the sideline, so all in all it was a pretty rough and tumble game. Captain Jack’s recollection: Regarding the Drinking Horn, Flying Squad, etc. I may be able to find an old pic that would round off John's and Mick's photos. I recall once persuading the Miners and Dentals to try a different modus operandi. The idea was for each team to be privided with a 5-gallon keg, and on the word "GO", they had to knock out the bung, fit the spigot and drink their keg dry, the first to finish being the winner. It all went off well, but the trouble was everyone got as pissed as newts and the scheme was abandoned. A good try though! This must have happened after your time, I think With the traditional system, the complaints from the team managers and consequent re-runs, everyone got pretty pissed anyway. I think the keg scheme was a bit too serious, as there wss little hoop-la to break up the boozing. The 1952 Miners’ Flying Squad

Neilson-Hitchon-McIntosh-Buist-Hunt-McFee Gordon

Goodbye Piccadilly, hello Bali Hai Sydney Morning Herald

6 September 2003

Swaying palms, warm waters and exotic marine species conjure images of a tropical island, not a London streetscape. But a leading scientist has found evidence that the streets of London were once a subtropical paradise. A palaeontologist at Britain’s Natural History Museum, Jackie Skipper, says fossils found during digging work on London’s Channel Tunnel rail link point to the city’s more exotic past. The British media reported on Thursday that Dr Skipper had found oyster, shark teeth and exotic palm tree fossils showing that the East End had a climate similar to today’s South China seas 55.5 million years ago. The BBC website said work on the rail link to the Chunnel has carved out a trench 1.1 kilometres long, 40 metres wide and more than four storeys deep. “This exciting find gives us valuable evidence of what London’s landscape used to look like,” Dr Skipper told the BBC. “We are talking Malaysia, Thailand, that kind of temperature, in east London. “We’ve got palm trees, we’ve got sharks, we’ve got shells and a sandy beach. “We’ve got these huge banks of oysters, we’ve got evidence of enormous earthquakes, of a sub-tropical paradise in east London with sharks swimming through the streets. “It’s just an extraordinary picture and it’s really contributing to our understanding of the time.”

Medieval Weapons Of Mass Destruction ABC Science Online Abbie Thomas in Manchester Thursday, 11 September 2003 Ingredients The ingredients required for making a medieval form of gunpowder that is almost as good as today's equivalent Medieval recipes for gunpowder produce nearly the same firepower as today's manufactured equivalent, according to recent weapons tests, providing clues as to how the British fleet became one of the largest fighting forces in the world. Robert Smith who is Head of Conservation at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, told the British Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Manchester this week that the medieval gunpowder was made from ancient recipes or formulas still surviving from the 14th Century. "Gunpowder is an amazing, strange and bizarre material," Smith told ABC Science Online. He and colleagues recreated the gunpowder - essentially a mixture of sulphur, charcoal and saltpetre - from scratch. They harvested raw sulphur from the hills of Iceland and burned alder wood in the ground to create charcoal. The third ingredient, saltpetre, was obtained from the nitrates left over from manure collected from stables. Mixing The team mixing up medieval gunpowder in the lab using traditional wooden bowls The medieval gunpowder was packed into a replica Loshult gun, a small canon-like gun from Sweden which dates from the 14th Century. The newly made medieval gunpowder was able to fire a lead ball as far as 945 metres (and reaching speeds up to 200 m per second), compared to a distance of 1100 metres for the commercial gun powder. The old recipes called for mixed powder to be 'stamped' - put under pressure - for at least 20 hours, but preferably 30. But even with very little preparation time the team achieved surprising results. "These simplified powders were unbelievably effective," Smith said. "What stunned us is if you take these simple ingredients and mix them together for five minutes, it goes off like an absolute rocket." Gun The Loshult gun they used to test the gunpowder The team also loaded larger guns with the same simple mixture and fired them at thick wooden walls to simulate firing on ships at sea. They found that guns loaded with stones made a fist-sized hole in the side of the wooden wall, while cast iron balls blasted a hole larger than themselves. Next, the group will try out different ratios of the ingredients in the gunpowder to recreate how people might have tried to improve it during the first few centuries of its existence. "In the evolution of combat, it's always a race between attack and defence," Smith said. "Knowing how effective these guns were will give us information on how people decided to go about building castles, fighting wars and even building their ships. After all, the reason the U.K. got where it did was largely because of its navy."

Brush With Art Thieves Sydney Morning Herald Date: September 9 2003 A New Zealand couple holidaying in Scotland are key witnesses in one of the biggest art heists in Britain - the theft of an $A80 million Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece. Olive Reed and her husband Graeme photographed two of the three thieves as they leapt into their getaway car outside Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfries and Galloway on August 27, even chatting to one as he rushed past. One had the /Madonna with the Yarnwinder/ tucked under his arm - one of only a handful of known da Vinci paintings in private ownership, and compared to the /Mona Lisa/ in style by art critics. The Reeds' digital photographs gave police an instant lead because it showed the getaway car and registration number, plus two of the thieves. The couple had been visiting relatives who lived near the castle and decided to walk its expansive grounds that day. "We heard the burglar alarm going - we weren't sure if it was a real one or not," Mrs Reed said. "Then we saw a man scaling the wall over towards us from the castle. He jumped down - only a few metres from us - and said 'It's all right love, we're the police. We're having a practice.' "I said: 'All right then, I'll take your photo.' " NZPA

Audio-on-Demand I recently spent a pleasant hour listening to a replay of Margaret Throsby (ABCFM Australia) interviewing Sir Richard Attenborough. If you don't know of him, he's the guy who makes those fabulous wildlife films. He is a very interesting fellow. What makes this noteworthy is that the program went to air two days previously, and I was listening to it via "audio-on-demand" through the speakers on my computer. As tecnological advances leap upon us one after the other, we tend to become blase about them. But now and again I am pulled up short in my tracks just gob-smacked at the wonder of it all. A friend sent me a recent promo from the Minnesota Public Broadcasting Service. Back in the 1980s I used to listen avidly every Saturday afternoon from 5 to 7pm to this radio variety show, hosted by the very funny Garrison Keilor. Once I got past the stuff for sale I found that I could call up programs as far back as 1985 and listen to them online by "audio on demand". WONDERFUL!!! Really made my day. Now instead of playing the old tape of the very last program, I can pick and choose among hundreds of them!! If you are interested check out http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/1985/11/ . You can hear others via the "Old Shows" link. If you look at the Australian Broadcasting Commission web site (with its 500 or so pages) you will find a great deal of fascinating material, much of it available as transcripts, audio-on-demand and even video-ondemand. And we’re only just scratching the surface of digital technology.

More From Michael Broad Micheal is a real mine of interesting information (pun intended ☺)

VoIP Telephony (Voice over Internet Protocol)

Have you heard of telephony over the internet? It’s the way of the future. I can speak to folk in just about any country in the civilized world for about 7¢ a minute and no flagfall.What’s different about current technology is that you can make the calls without the called party having the software installed. If they do have, the call is FREE!! The only catch I found was that my sound-card mounted microphone wouldn’t work, so I had to buy a USB phone for about $100 which bypasses the sound card altogether.You can even buy a little box and do the same with your existing phones and without even having a computer! But you have to pay about $20 a month access fee for that service. If you are interested do a Google search for “voip” or check out my service at www.freshtel.net .

Potted Histories Bill Croxford My secondary school education was done at King's High School and Timaru Boys High school then I moved on to The University of Otago with the intention of doing a chemistry degree because that was the subject that really turned me on.But in that first year I needed a third subject so I chose Geology simply because my father (a policeman) spent most of his holidays panning for gold in the Shag River near Dunback.I tagged along too because it was good fun tickling trout and I can tell you the technique works. Well Geology proved to be a revelation especially when we were introduced to Petrology because I already had an old (~1890) brass microscope at home which had calcite polarisers and I had been using it to examine biological material when at school.In those days the Geology Department also had old brass Leitz microscopes again with calcite polarisers and the optics were good as I recall. And so I finally graduated in Chemistry and Geology after a rather indifferent student record.And having obtained a qualification I still had no idea what I wanted to do in terms of a job. Worse than that I was broke. My future wife Joy (a nurse) was paying my way Unexpectedly I was offered a job at at OSM as laboratory assistant to Dr.John Rogers and that is when I began to learn a lot of things about mining and mineral beneficiation.Further to this I sat in on some mineral dressing lectures and amongst other things I had to teach some students about reflected light microscopy as applied to mineral dressing. The samples we studied were polished briquettes of Mount Isa Pb/Zn/Ag ore kindly supplied by Dick O'Meara who was an OSM graduate working as the mineralogist/petrogist for M.I.M.There were occasional evening lectures at OSM and I recall Bob Floyd giving one on the Mount Isa ores. I found the whole business of mining quite fascinating and I used to wonder why the High School vocational guidance officer never mentioned it as a possible career path. After almost 1 year (1955) with OSM, Denys Harraway mentioned to me that MIM were looking for a petrologist because Dick O'Meara had gone to Kitwe in the Copper Belt.Evidently the Mt.Isa job had been vacant for some time.I did nothing about it and some time later Denys asked me if I had applied. So I got cracking and I received a quick response from MIM to say I had the job and to come ASAP. What a revelation! A whole new learning curve began both work-wise and on the domestic/social front.It was envigorating although the climate required some adjustment. I really enjoyed the work because it covered all aspects of metallurgy as well as the geology of the mine and mineral exploration. Problem solving was the name of the game and Otago University had equipped me well to handle the job. I also took an interest in ore genesis because in those days most geologists thought the layered Pb/Zn/Ag ores were hydrothermal but there were a few dissenters who were brave enough to suggest they might simply be chemical sediments. In 1960 MIM gave me leave to study for a Ph.D at Armidale under the tutelage of Dr.Dick Stanton who,at that time, was regarded as a leader in the field of sedimentary ore genesis.It was an exciting 3 years following which I returned to Mt.Isa as Chief Research Geologist.From then on a lot of work involved the MacArthur deposit and these ores were even more texturally primitive than Mt Isa because they were virtually unmetamorphosed. Finally in1974 I was transferred to Brisbane to work in exploration and in 1984 I took voluntary retirement and set up a consultancy to the mining industry.This was an exciting work period too but the 5 day week seemed to disappear. At the end of 2000 I decided to call it a day and retire back to Timaru where my wife Joy and I had spent our younger days. We are now well settled and we have survived two winters with the aid of a heat pump ---- a very efficient form of heating.We will be retuning to Oz from time to time to see the family and old friends.

Fossickers Intrude On Newcrest's Golden Isle Sydney Morning Herald - By Barry FitzGerald - Date: October 28 2003 “Garimpeiros” packing canvas sacks and shovels have swarmed on to Newcrest Mining's freshly uncovered high-grade Toguraci gold deposit on the Indonesian island of Halmahera, forcing the Melbourne-based group to suspend development work at the jungle site. Up to 200 of the “unauthorised” miners moved on to the site once Newcrest had exposed the high-grade deposit by removing the 20 to 30 metres of waste or overburden that covers the 260,000 ounce-plus deposit. They have been filling their sacks and heading back to local villages to process the ore using rudimentary methods. Because much of the material removed is not ore but jungle dirt, Newcrest reckons they would be lucky to return 5oz of gold a day.

The local market did not doubt the company and pushed the stock 14c higher to $11.98 in response to higher US dollar gold prices. Newcrest said it decided to suspend the operation for safety reasons as heavy earthmoving equipment operating amid hundreds of garimpeiros scuttling about without hardhats and safety boots was not an ideal mix. Toguraci, which cost $10 to $15 million to develop, was due to produce its first gold in December. Newcrest believes production is now likely to be delayed by a month. Toguraci’s high-grade ore (43 grams of gold per tonne) will go to a nearby treatment plant, which earlier this year processed the last ore from Gosowong, Newcrest’s initial mine development in the area. Gosowong produced more than 730,000oz in three years at a cash cost of $US118 an ounce. The fat margins from the project helped Newcrest pursue an aggressive program of expansion and development in Australia. The Gosowong facilities have been fully depreciated so Toguraci will be a particularly sweet operation for Newcrest which can do with the cash flow to help feed its ambitious $1 billion Telfer development in Western Australia. Newcrest does not expect Toguraci to be the end of its golden cash flows from Indonesia. It has a new discovery called Kencana that is covered by its Gosowong approvals. Toguraci required a special clearance because it is within a protected forest.In early 2000, Newcrest was forced to suspend operations at Gosowong as a precautionary measure following civil unrest between Christians and Muslims in north Halmahera.Newcrest reduced workforce numbers at Gosowong from more than 300 to less than 40 people as a result of the measure.Newcrest owns 82.5 per cent of Gosowong/Toguraci, with the remaining 17.5 per cent held by Indonesia’s PT Aneka Tambang.

Bugs Grow Gold That Looks Like Coral Heather Catchpole ABC Science Online Wednesday, 28 January 2004 Microbes that grow gold grains looking like a coral reef could open up new possibilities for mineral prospecting, according to an Australian researcher. Frank Reith from the Australian National University in Canberra and Cooperative Research Centre for Landscape Environments and Mineral Exploration grew these 'bubbly' formations in the lab. As part of his doctoral thesis Reith looked at the metal-munching microbes involved and how they grow gold grains and nuggets in mines. He also published his research in the latest issue of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy's publication the AusIMM Bulletin. Gold is usually found in ore bodies, or in waterborne or alluvial deposits that have collected and concentrated gold by physical processes. These processes include gold grains rolling down a stream bed. Scientists know that microorganisms are involved in dissolving trace amounts of gold out of rock, which Reith's research confirmed. Gold in the quartz vein at the Tomakin mine on the south coast of New South Wales is invisible, even to high-powered electron microscopes, said Reith. The gold is hidden in sulfur-rich metal minerals, until the microbes remove it from the rock atom by atom. But Reith suggested the microbes played another important role: transporting and precipitating gold to form grains and nuggets that collect in alluvial deposits. He found traces of the microbes' genetic material on the deposits, which confirmed they were present.

Microbes grow gold in the lab that buds and bubbles.

Coloured scanning electron micrograph of a gold flake produced by microbes.

Reith then took some of the microbes from the mine and used them to 'grow' gold in the lab. "The gold grains grow like a coral reef," Reith told ABC Science Online. "There is a mother cell, which produces buds, forming a bubbly formation." Reith said the microbes at the surface of these formations could still be hard at work, forming new gold layers on top of the past generation's fossilised gold deposit. Marker for gold - Reith suggested that the presence of the gold-digging microbes could be used as an environmentally friendly marker for geological exploration. Looking at past geophysical data for signs of the

microbes could prompt further exploration of an area where there is no visible gold deposit, he said. "It would never substitute for other methods but it could be an add-on," said Reith. "If you found a lot of these organisms in the field you [would be able to] tell that there is some sort of mineralisation there." Reith said the next step in his research would be to extract genetic material from the microbes to identify the species. He suspects they belong to the genus Pedomicrobium, which contains microbes known to dissolve other metals. "It's very hard to pinpoint certain organisms; there are millions growing in the soil," he said. Dr Dennis Gee, chief executive of the research centre involved in the research, said the process Reith unearthed could apply to the main alluvial gold fields in Victoria, at Bathurst in New South Wales, in the Northern Territory and possibly at Coolgardie in Western Australia. The research could also be important in processing gold from ores that are hard to dissolve, said Gee. These make up one-third of all Australia's gold reserves. *****If any of the following seems familiar, maybe you need to ask yourself if you really are “retired”*****

The Workaholic’s Way by Mary Ann Maxwell MIS, managing director, Asia Pacific ope (edited version _Ed.) Is it time you signed up for Workaholics Anonymous? You’re not alone. It’s not always easy to find a middle ground between work and life… that elusive work/life balance. However, many of us work in a compulsive and addictive way. We simply cannot change our poor working habits and find our personal and social relationships are deeply affected by the lack of time and attention. So are you a workaholic? I certainly see myself in some of these characteristics. Compulsive overworkers: • Are usually in a hurry • Have a strong need to control • Expect perfection of themselves and others • Have difficulty in relationships • Cannot relax and have fun • Are impatient and irritable • Suffer physical problems due to stress, poor eating habits and lack of exercise. • Often do several things at once, (ie. eat breakfast while listening to voice mail) Breaking the behaviour Here are some of the simple principles that a workaholic can apply to that journey in a new direction? • Reorganise your life so work becomes proportionate to family, friends and yourself; switch your focus to relaxation, exercise, and proper and balanced nutrition • Slow your work pace • Learn to eat, drink, walk and drive slower • Work in moderation; keep regular hours. • Set boundaries between work and personal life • Strengthen family ties through sharing activities and developing traditions • Renew old acquaintances • Learn to live in the present… stop and smell the roses. [I regard myself as lucky to have been involved in the “personal growth movement” of the 1970s & 80s. That’s when I stopped living-to-work- and started working-to-live. It didn’t make me rich, but it sure made me happier and healthier. _Ed.]

Changi To Remain A Monument To POWs Sydney Morning Herald - By Mark Baker Herald Correspondent in Singapore - March 8 2004 Fittings and artefacts from the infamous Changi Prison will be sent to Australia as part of plans to preserve sections of the Singapore jail where thousands of Allied troops were held by the Japanese in World War II. The Singaporean Government has bowed to international pressure and agreed to save a 180-metre section of the old prison wall, including two turrets used as Japanese guard posts, and to relocate the jail's emblematic main gates. The Australian War Memorial, Goulburn City Council and a number of ex-service groups are negotiating with Singaporean authorities to take other parts of the jail for use in museum displays - including cell doors, shower stalls and other period fixtures. Singapore's Corrections Department was going to demolish the entire wartime prison, built by the British in 1936 and still housing civilian prisoners, to make way for a vast new jail. The plans, first reported last June, drew an outcry from Allied veterans and Singaporean historians who feared the loss of one of the bestknown landmarks of the war in the Pacific. Almost 15,000 Australians were taken prisoner after Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942 - many of them passing though Changi on their way to the death camps on the Burma railway, coalmines in Japan and the labour camps of Borneo. The national secretary of the Ex-Prisoner of War Association, Cyril Gilbert, welcomed the news yesterday. "We're very happy that at least some of the jail is being kept in memory of all those who suffered and died," he said. But Mr Gilbert, who spent a year in Changi after returning from the Burma railway, said veterans groups had hoped the main gates would be kept in their original position, rather than being relocated. "We would have loved them to be retained where they were and where we walked in and out. So many of the men who passed through those gates never came back," he said. The decision to save parts of the prison followed intense lobbying by several Australian ministers, including the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, whose father was in Changi. The Australian high commissioner, Gary Quinlan, said: "We're very pleased. This is what we've been asking for and, in fact, this is more than the Singaporeans had initially been thinking of saving." He said calls to preserve the entire prison were never likely to succeed. "It's a working prison. It has to be rebuilt, and we always recognised that." Under the revised redevelopment plans, the preserved sections of the prison at present within the jail boundaries will be opened to the public. Authorities are also considering building a historical display centre to complement the Changi museum and chapel that was opened on a site near the jail several years ago. In a statement released at the weekend, the Singaporean Home Affairs Ministry said the surviving section of the old jail would be gazetted as a national monument. The ministry said that selected artefacts from parts of the prison to be demolished later this year are being offered to tourism authorities and the governments of Australia, Britain and New Zealand.

Hill End Resurrected! The Living End - Pulse Found In An Old Gold Vein Sydney Morning Herald - By Brian Robins - Date: April 12 2004 (edited version _Ed.) It's become home to a host of painters such as Russell Drysdale, John Olsen, John Firth-Smith and Gary Shead who have sought inspiration at Hill End. One of the more recent imports is jazz singer Lee Gunness, who moved to the village a few years ago after living and working mostly in Sydney. Artists and miners are often a volatile mix, but for Hill End, tapping that country spirit has helped now that the town has returned to its gold-mining roots. The Hill End mine has been re-opened and has produced its first gold in more than 80 years. And the extra money kicking around town has been quickly noticed.Higher gold prices, along with new approaches to exploration and production, have given Hill End a new lease on life. The resumption of mining caps off more than 20 years of work - first to amalgamate the mining leases into a single holding, and then, in the past decade, exploring the old workings, says Graham Reveleigh, who heads the mine. There was a bonanza find south of the town, where gold is of a phenomenal 546 grams to the tonne grade, during drilling in the mid-1990s. That rekindled hopes that Hill End could relive its glory days when it boasted 27 pubs and its own brewery. Gold grades of two to three grams to the tonne get gold miners' pulses racing, especially with prices at $US420.80 ($551) an ounce, at 16-year highs.

In the 70 years after 1851, when gold was found at Hill End, more than 1.5 million ounces were produced there. That would be worth more than $750 million at today's prices. Most of that was produced in the first few decades of mining at the town, with fabulous discoveries such as the nugget found on the Holtermann claim in 1872. Weighing 286 kilograms, it contained 3000 ounces of gold. The gold at Hill End forms part of the Lachlan Fold, an extensive zone of mineralisation extending from the south-east to the north-west of the state. It includes large mines such as Cadia, south of Orange, and some near Cobar. Several years of extensive drilling during the 1990s were needed before Cadia yielded its riches, with the mine's life now extended for many years to come. "The Lachlan Fold belt is the equivalent of the Greenstone belt (in WA)," said Mr Reveleigh. The Greenstone belt hosts all of Western Australia's gold deposits, including those at Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie. Outside Broken Hill, all of the base metal mines in NSW are located in the Lachlan Fold, such as two mines near Parkes and the Wyoming gold mine which is being developed west of Dubbo. Work is underway to turn some gold prospects near Wellington into a small gold mine.

The last word on the Australian Elelctions

This one’s for the “older” Old Boys. How many of them do you know? I’m stuck at four [Jones, Makie, Paterson & Sanderson].

Graduates Of The Former School Of Mines University Of Otago In Pre-War Malaya ABEL, William (Bill) Wilkie, BE,BSc,AOSM(1933). Worked for a year or so in a mine in Otago, but went to Malaya c.1934 to join the staff of Pahang Consolidated Co. Ltd.(PCCL). This was the largest underground tin mine in the world at that time. Joined the Federated Malay States Volunteer Forces (FMSVF) in 1941 (Captain). Became a Prisoner of War (POW) when Singapore fell to the Japanese in Feb.1942, first in Changi, then in Thailand on the infamous ThaiBurma railway construction. After recuperation in NZ, he returned to PCCL of which he became General Manager c.1959. Technical Advisor to PCCL head office, London, UK, in 1971, and probably a Director. He returned to NZ shortly after this and died a few years later, in Ranfurly I think. Bill Abel was an outstanding sportsman whilst at OU; he played Rugby for the University A team and was Captain for a spell. He also played for the NZ University and probably for Otago Province. OU and NZU Blue. He was also in the OU Inter-university Shooting team. ANDREW, R.B. (Bruce). BE, AOSM (1941). The son of the late Dr.Arthur Andrew who was Dean of the Mining Faculty at OU from 1933 - 41. Bruce Andrew went to Malaya in 1941 to join the staff of the Raub Australian Gold Mining Co. in Pahang. He joined the FMSVF (Sergeant?) in 1941 and became a POW when Singapore fell in Feb.1942, first in Changi and then in Thailand. He returned to NZ late in 1945 when released, and worked for a spell with the Dominion Fertiliser Co. but joined the Colonial Service as an Inspector of Mines in Malaya in 1947. After Malaysia's Independence in 1957 he returned to NZ and was employed by the Ministry of Works and later by the Lyttelton Tunnel Authority. By 1980 he was reported as living in retirement in Christchurch. I think he played Rugby for OU. He had a younger brother, Major Michael Andrew, MC, NZ Engineers, who also attended the OU School of Mines until he joined the Army, then after the war the Palestine Police, and later the Colonial Service. He was never in Malaya, though. BURNS, A.(Alex). BE (probably), AOSM (1939). Born Scotland and came to NZ with his parents at age 12 and was educated at Hamilton High School, Auckland Univ.College and OU, finishing his course in 1939. In 1939 he joined the staff of Raub Australian Gold Mine, in Pahang, Malaya and later became battery manager. He served with the FMSVF (Sergeant), and became a POW when Singapore fell. His death was not confirmed until Malaya was reoccupied late in 1945. He died of sickness while working on the Thai-Burma railway construction some time in 1943 Alex Burns was and outstanding Rugby player, obtaining a Blue at OU and also representing Waikato. DAVIS, William (Bill) Robert, BE (probably),AOSM (1936). He was the son of a well-known colliery manager on the West Coast and came to the Otago School of Mines in 1933, completing his course in 1936. He was then appointed assistant engineer in charge of Government prospecting in Marlborough, but a year later joined the staff of PCCL in Malaya. At the outbreak of war in the Far East he was a Sergeant in the Pahang Battalion, FMSVF, and when resistance in Malaya collapsed he became a POW. Until 1943 he was in Singapore, but was then transferred to the Batu Lintang camp near Kuching, Sarawak as a member of a party engaged in building a road at Dahan. He was last heard of with a working party of about 300 which was sent from Kuching to Labuan in 1944 to build an aerodrome. It is known that there were no survivors from this party; it is believed that many died of sickness and malnutrition and that when the Australians attacked the island the Japanese massacred those who were still alive, probably in April 1945. Bill Davis was very popular among his fellow prisoners, and was a steadying influence for many. DUNNE, William (Bill) T., BSc, BE, AOSM (1934). His first job after graduation was on prospecting operations in Papua New Guinea (PNG) for a year or so, but he obtained a position with PCCL and went to Malaya. Around 1938 he joined the consulting firm of Vallentine and Vaughan in Kuala Lumpur when Vaughan retired. I think the firm became Vallentine and Dunne. He joined the FMSVF and became a Sergeant in the Armoured Car unit.. During the Malayan Campaign against the Japanese his A.Car was captured by the enemy after a brisk action at a road-block, and the crew incarcerated in the Pudu Road Gaol in Kuala Lumpur for some time (this was before the fall of

Singapore in Feb. 1942). He was later transferred to Changi POW camp in Singapore and eventually sent to work on the Thai-Burma railway. On release at the end of 1945 he returned to NZ for recuperation leave before going back to Malaya where he resuscitated his firm as Principal. It became very successful and I believe Bill became a Director of several British dredging companies which operated in Malaya. His Malayan associations led to a close involvement with the London Tin Corporation and he finally took up residence in UK at Guildford. He became a Technical Director of the Corporation, which took him back to Malaysia on visits, as well as to other parts of the world, including NZ, on mining operations. He came back to NZ with the intention of retiring in Wanaka, but after a comparatively short time sold up and went back to UK where he built a house called "Dunedin" at Curry Rivel in Somerset. He still lives there, aged about 85. He married Lorna Hutton, a graduate of the OU Home Science School, but she was afflicted by a brain disease relatively recently and is now in a Home near Curry Rivel. There are four children, all living in UK. Bill Dunne was an outstanding sportsman in his student days. He was a winger in the University A Rugby team for several years, and had NZU Blues in Rugby and Boxing. He was also on the OU Athletics team. He played in the trial match for the All Black selection and I understand that he may well have been included if he had not gone off to PNG. Post-war, when he ws living in Malaysia, he played Rugby there and, I believe, became President of the Malaysian Rugby Football Union. Again, while he was working in Malaysia after the war, he was involved in an incident during the Emergency, in Pahang I believe, when he and others were in a prahu goimg up a large river. The craft was fired on by Communist bandits and a young OU geology graduate, "Pop"Amies was killed. Bill Dunne jumped out of the prahu and towed it to safety using it as a screen. He is now nearly blind, probably as a result of malnutrition whilst a POW. We talk on the 'phone occasionally. Bill was very well known in Malaysia and was a great ambassador for OU. [He died in England on April 23, 2003 --JBM.] FAIRMAID, Gordon, AOSM (1927). Went to Malaya not long after graduation to work for PCCL in Pahang. He was interned in Singapore during the Japanese occupation. After recuperating in NZ, he went back to Malaya as General Manager of the company where he remained as such until 1953 when he went to London HQ, UK, as Managing Director. I believe he became Chairman of Directors before retiring to Dunedin, NZ in 1957, still as a Director of the company. He had a long connection with Malaya and was well known in mining circles. I think he moved to Auckland and may have died there in the 1970s. HUNT, Leslie (Les) George Richard, BE(probably), AOSM (1938). I cannot find out much, for certain, about this man, although I knew him in Malaya. He may have been born in Alexandra, Otago. He was a student in the OU School of Mines from about 1932 to 1935 and went to Malaya to work for a company called Straits Trading Ltd. or Straits Tin Fields Ltd. which was conducting various mining operations in the Far East and was, I believe, working in South Thailand around the time of the Japanese attack on Malaya, probably on a military intelligence mission (he was recruited into the Special Operations Executive (SOE), as a Lieutenant, British Army). He was captured by the Japanese in circumstances I know little about, and taken to Japan to work, possibly in a mine, but he died of disease in January 1943. His body was cremated and eventually his ashes were returned to Dunedin where they may now rest in his father's grave in the Andersons Bay Cemetery. I understand he may be commemorated on his father's tombstone. HUNTER, Leslie (Les), AOSM (1930). He graduated from the OU School of Mines in 1928 and some time later, possibly after a spell working in Rhodesia, went to Malaya to work for Straits Tin Fields Ltd. He was on leave in NZ when the war in the Far East started, and was recruited to the staff of the OU School of Mines until 1946 when he returned to Malaya. He became Chief Mining Engineer of the General Mining and Agency Co.Ltd, Kuala Lumpur, and later General Superintendent of Straits Consolidated Tin Mines Ltd. at Yala, S.Thailand. After appointment to the Board of the Straits Trading Co. in Singapore, he retired to NZ around 1959.. He was living in Dunedin in 1977 and he may have died there between then and 1980. HUTTON, G.(Gerry), AOSM (1939). After graduation he went to Malaya to work for the Raub Australian Gold Mining Co., joined the FMSVF, and becama a POW of the Japanese when Singapore fell in Feb. 1942. After the war he joined the Martha Gold Co.(Waihi) Ltd. Later he spent a short period working for the Misima Gold Mine Ltd. in Papua before joining Bill Dunne's consulting firm in Kuala Lumpur, Malaya where he remained until around 1964

when he went to Western Australia to live in Ardross, presumably in retirement. He died between 1980 and 1986, I believe. I think he was related by marriage to Bill Dunne JONES, Lloyd S., AOSM (1940), 1990 Commem. Medal. Went to Malaya to work for the General Mining and Agency Co., Singapore, and was working in S.Thailand when the Japanese invaded Malaya. He was captured and eventually interned in Singapore. After his release and recuperation in NZ he worked for the Blackwater Mines Ltd. at Waiuta, south of Reefton, where he gained the First Class Mine Manager's Certificate in 1949. He was then appointed an Inspector of Mines in Queensland, Australia (where he was made Justice of the Peace) until he returned to NZ in 1954 to join the Mines Department as Inspector of Mines & Quarries in Greymouth. In 1963 he was appointed Chief Inspector of Mines, Quarries and Petroleum, in Wellington. In addition, he was Chief Mining Engineer, Minerals, from 1971. He retired in 1982, but held various consulting and Board positions. He is still living in Wellington. After retirement he published privately the story of his life as: The Life and Times of a Mining Engineer. ( Vide: Who's Who in New Zealand, (12ed.,1991), p.329). JUPP, Gordon A., BSc, BE, AOSM (1936). Went to Malaya to work, I believe, for the General Mining & Agency Co. of Singapore. He was out of the country before Singapore fell to the Japanese, joined the NZ forces and died of wounds in Libya in August 1941. McCLUGGAGE, J. (Joe) L., AOSM (1926). Went to Malaya to work for the Anglo-Oriental Mining Co. in that country, Thailand and Burma. During WW2 he joined the Indian Army and commanded the 13th Indian Railway Maintenance Company, rising to the rank of Lt.-Col. After discharge and leave in NZ and USA, he returned to Malaya to the Head Office of Anglo-Oriental in Kuala Lumpur. In 1951 he was Acting British Vice-Consul , Phuket, Thailand while Acting District Superintendent for Anglo-Oriental (Malaya) Ltd. In 1953 he was Mine Superintendent, Larut Tin Fields Ltd., Taiping, Malaya and later Mine Superintendent, Kamunting Tin Dredging Ltd., in the same area, where he remained for a good many years. In 1971 he was reported to have been living in retirement in Nassau, Bahamas. MACKIE, John Bullamore, OBE (1995), ED (1954), DSc(Hon.,2000) )MSc, BE, AOSM (1934). Born Dunedin 1910. Early in 1935 he left for Malaya to take a position as Field Engineer for J.B.David's interests (Anglo-Asiatic Mining Corporation Ltd.) and worked with Paddy Shiel on prospecting operations in Pahang, Kedah and Selangor States. In July 1936 he joined the Colonial Service and was posted as District Inspector of Mines, Kuala Lumpur. Whilst there (in 1936) he joined the Selangor Battalion, FMSVF as a private. Postings to other Districts north, including Kuala Kubu Bharu, Tapah and Batu Gajah followed, with promotion to State Inspector, Perak, in mid-1941. He had been commissioned in the FMSVF in the meantime and was Lieut. Shortly after the outbreak of war in Malaya he was posted temporarily (with a Volunteer platoon) to make up the strength of the battered, amalgamated remnants, from battles further north, of the 1st Leicesters and 2nd East Surreys, which became known as the British Battalion. Was involved in the Battle of Kampar and other actions in the Peninsula. On arrival in Singapore was returned to the FMSVF, but was later posted as an Intelligence Officer to a polyglot brigade in the 18th British Division for the Battle of Singapore. He was taken prisoner (as Capt.) on the fall of that City, and spent 1 year in Changi POW canp, and 2½ years in the Batu Lintang POW camp near Kuching, Sarawak. After recuperation leave in NZ, he returned to Malaya as Assistant to the Chief Inspector of Mines in the position of Technical Advisor on the rehabilitation of the (mainly Chinese) gravel-pumping mining industry which normally produced about half of Malaya's tin. He resigned for personal reasons in 1947 and took up the position of Lecturer in Surveying on the staff of the Otago School of Mines in August 1947. In 1949, with the consent of the University and the NZ Survey Board, he began studies and practical work in the summer vacations towards Registration as a Land Surveyor, a status he achieved in 1956. Promotion to Senior Lecturer and appointment as Associate Professor followed, and in 1959 he began setting up the Department of Surveying which started its life in the Faculty of Technology but was soon transferred to the Faculty of Science where it remains today, after taking in its first undergraduates in 1963. All those seeking professional surveying qualifications in NZ must attend this special OU school. He was appointed Personal Professor in 1969 and granted the status of Professor Emeritus when he retired early in 1976. He had close connections over a long period with the NZ Institute of Surveyors and the Royal NZ Astronomical Society, being President of each for 2-year periods, and being elected a Fellow of each. He wrote a text book on astronomy for surveyors which was published in London, was widely used and ran into 5 editions.

He was heavily involved with the NZ Army (Major, RNZE) in the Compulsory Military Training period from 1949 to1955, and with the Scout Association of NZ (Provincial Commissioner Otago) from 1955 to 1963, and is presently a Life Member. Whilst a student at OU he represented the University in Shooting (Blue), Athletics and Cross-country running. He published privately in 2003 the story of his life as One for the Tiger. (Vide: Who's Who in New Zea;amd (12ed., 1991), p.397). MOSS, Albert Lewis (Lew), BE (possibly), AOSM (c.1940). He went to Malaya after graduation to work, I understand, for the General Mining & Agency Co. of Singapore. He left the country before the fall of Singapore to the Japanese, and joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force, but went missing on a mission over the South Pacific on 27 June 1943. PALMER, Allen George ("Snowy"), AOSM (1941). He worked in the mining industry in Fiji and Australia after finishing his course at the Otago School of Mines c.1935, before going to Malaya in mid-1936 to take up a position with the Anglo-Asiatic Mining Corporation as a Field Engineer on prospecting operations. He was on leave in NZ when war broke out in Malaya late in 1941, and went to UK where he was trained as a parachutist (Lieut.) in a special unit in the British Army. He took part in the landings in Borneo and Malaya towards the end of WW2 in 1945. After leave in NZ and discharge from the UK forces, he was appointed to the Colonial Service as an Inspector of Mines in Tanganyiks (c.1946) where he remained until c.1962 when he returned to NZ and joined the Ministry of Works. He transferred to the Mines Department as Inspector of Mines & Quarries in Dunedin, then Huntly, eventually retiring to Nelson where he died on 10 May 1988. PATERSON, Oliver (Ollie) Douglass, MBE, MSc,BE,AOSM (1940). Went to Malaya for the Colonial Service and joined the Mines Department as Inspector of Mines. Escaped from the country when Singapore fell to the Japanese. He went to UK for training in a special unit of the British Army, but was invalided out of this because of severe illness contracted during exercises. I think he was then sent to Nigeria to work in the Nigerian Mines Department for a spell. He was posted back to Malaya after the Japanese occupation ended in 1945 and remained in the Mines Inspectorate there until 1951 when he resigned to take up an appointment to the staff of the Department of Mining Engineering, University of Queensland, Australia. Before leaving Malaya he was appointed MBE for good work during the Emergency. He remained with the University of Queensland until c.1956 when he joined Mineral Deposits Pty. Ltd. in Southport, Queensland, of which he became Manager of Exploration and Director of Mineral Deposits c.1971 and later, Managing Director. He was also a Director of several other companies. He died between 1980 and 1986 in Australia. PENSELER, Wolfram (Wolf), Hermann, Albert, DSc, BE, AOSM (1924). Penseler came to the School of Mines in 1920 and completed his classes in 1924. On the death of Professor Waters in 1926, he took over the Metallurgical Department and at the same time studied for MSc, and being interested in coal utilisation research,submitted a thesis on the microstructure of NZ coals. Between 1927 and 1930 he was with the Vacuum Oil Company and later with Imperial Chemical Industries in NZ, and was also engaged in boring operations at Charleston, on the West Coast. In 1931 he was appointed Director of the Huntly School of Mines where he continued his researches in coal utilisation and briquetting problems, and obtained the DSc (NZ) in 1932 after further studies on coal microstructures. He had by this time also obtained a First Class Coal Manager's Certificate and a Battery Manager's Certificate, which, together with the Degree of BE, and AOSM in both Metallurgical and Mining Divisions, made him perhaps the most highly qualified and versatile mining and metallurgical engineer NZ has ever produced. It had been his intention to devote his life to the NZ coal industry, and well did the industry need a man of his calibre. However, he was unable to overcome the traditional difficulties which face academically qualified men in the coal mining industry, and with great reluctance he turned his attention to metal mining. He was engaged for nearly two years reporting on gold properties in NZ, and in 1935 joined the staff of Austral Malay Tin Ltd., and managed their subsidiary, Puchong Tin Dredging Ltd. in Selangor, Malaya, and later Asam Kumbang Tin Dredging Ltd. at Taiping, in Perak. In 1939 Penseler ws appointed General Manager of the Raub Australian Gold Mining Co. in Pahang. When the Japanese overran Malaya he was interned in Singapore, and his death in November 1944 was brought about by the treatment he received at the hands of the Japanese Military Police. SANDERSON, Frank L., AOSM (1925). From 1926 to 1928 he worked in the mill of the Blackwater Mines Ltd., Waiuta, N.Z.,and was later appointed Assistant Battery Superintendent. >From 1928 to 1935 he managed the battery for Alexander

Mines. In 1936 he managed Murray Creek Gold Mine and c.1940 went to Malaya as Assistant General Manager (to Dr.Penseler) of the Raub Australian Gold Mining Co. in Pahang. During the Japanese occupation of Malaya he was interned in Singapore, and after a short leave in NZ and a tour of various mining districts in Australia, returned to Malaya in 1946 as General Manager of Raub Australian. He relinquished that position in1949 after having rehabilitated a property which had been stripped during the Japanese occupation, and returned to NZ where he was appointed to the staff of the OU School of Mines as Technical Liaison Officer with intustry. He retired from this post in the mid-1960s and joined Palmer's Quarries in Dunedin as a blasting expert; he was last reported in Dunedin in 1971. I think he died a few years later. [Frank’s daughter Rema was a teenage sweetheart of mine _Ed.] SERVICE, Harold, CBE, MSc, BE, DIC, AOSM (1933). After graduation he went to the Royal School of Mines, London, on an 1851 Science Research Scholarship and obtained the Diploma of the Imperial College after doing research and fieldwork in Spain. He joined the Colonial Service and spent some time in Ghana before going to the Geological Survey of Malaya. He later enlisted in the FMSVF (1941) and was commissioned as a Captain. He became a POW when Singapore fell to the Japanese and was in Changi before being sent to work on the Thai-Burma railway. Following recuperation leave in NZ after release late in 1945, he rejoined the Malayan Geological Survey, eventually rising to become Deputy Director, and then Director c.1954. When Malaya became Independent in 1957 he retired and was appointed CBE in 1958. He returned to Dunedin NZ where he accepted the position of first Bursar of John McGlashan College, which he held until 1972. He died in Dunedin on 21 April 1993 in his 84th year. Harold Service was another great sportsman. As a student, he played for the Otago University A Rugby team (Blue), NZ Universities (Blue) and Otago Province. He was a Life Member of the OU Rugby Football Club and was instrumental in setting up the Light Blues Association, a club for former players and supporters of the University club. In 1979 he was elected President of the Otago Rugby Football Union. He was also involved with the Red Cross Society and served a term on the Silverpeaks County Council. One of Harold's sisters, Eileen, was the wife of a former Vice-Chancellor of OU, Dr.Frederick Soper, CBE. Harold married Tephany Ross of Dunedin. SHIEL, Patrick (Paddy) Ormond, AOSM (1926). On leaving the School of Mines, he went to Malaya to work for J.B.David's mining companies, Singapore, as Assistant Mining Engineer. and was engaged from 1927 until 1931 in testing alluvial areas in the Kinta Valley, Perak, but this work was interrupted by ill-health until June 1933, when he made examinations and reported on areas in NZ for Industries Ltd. and Rotomana Prospecting Syndicate for a few months. He also did some testing and reporting in 1934 for Krasom Tin Dredging Co.Ltd. in alluvial tinbearing areas in Thailand and in September of that year rejoined J.B.David as Mining Engineer. He was engaged in prospecting operations for tin, gold and tungsten in Malaya, Borneo and Thailand until war broke out in the Far East.. Little is known of his activities after the Japanese attacked Malaya. There are conflicting reports of his having joined the RAF or the RNVR in Singapore. He is said to have been aboard a small ship which was sunk during an air-raid on Singapore Harbour and was reported missing, presumed dead. He was respondible for recruiting a number of OU graduates to the Malayan mining industry, including myself. His wife, "Brownie" McTamney, was the sister of Molly, the wife of Charles Upham, VC & Bar. THOMSON, Thomas ("Tommy") James, BSc(1939), Dip. Land & Mine Surveying Although he did not present a thesis to complete the requirements for AOSM, he was awarded the Ulrich Prize and Medal, and the Waters Memorial Prize for excellence during completion of the examinations for that Diploma. On the recommendation of J.L.McLuggage (q.v.) he joined Anglo-Oriental (Malaya) Corporation early in 1939 and reported on alluvial tin deposits throughout the Malay Peninsula including Thailand. Other studies were made of tantalite deposits in the territory of Malacca (Straits Settlements). He had joined the Selangor Battalion of the FMSVF in 1939, and when the Japanese attacked Malaya in December 1941 he was called up. After defensive operations at KL aerodrome and various other points on the retreat south, his unit was installed in "pill boxes" on Blakang Mati Island in defence of the large naval guns mounted there, until the surrender of Singapore on 15 February 1942. With six others, Tommy left in a canoe abandoned by retreating Australians, and paddled to a nearby island where the canoe was swapped for a ship's lifeboat complete with sail. They sailed south in what Tommy has understated as "a rather eventful journey" with the help of Malay and Chinese sea folk, until they reached the mouth of the Indragiri River in Sumatra. From there they were helped by the Dutch across Sumatra to the port of Padang on the west coast whence they were evacuated a few days later to Colombo on the cruiser

HMAS Hobart. The day after their arrival they were accepted on board one of the ships carrying Australian troops back home from the Middle East to counter the Japanese threat to Australia. After his arrival in NZ Tommy spent the rest of the war years working for the Government, making surveys for tungsten ore near the head of Lake Wakatipu, and for open-cast coal on the West Coast, South Island. When the war ended he was called back to Malaya by Anglo-Oriental to help with the rehabilitation of their mining activities, but after 4 months returned to NZ in October 1946. He and his wife Reta then took over the large Earnslaw sheep and cattle run in the Glenorchy area at the head of Lake Wakatipu and spent years making war on the rabbits and deer which had overrun the place. After this they improved the quality of their stock to cope better with the mountainous terrain and rigorous climate of the region, and have farmed successfully there ever since. Tommy, supported by Reta, has been very active in local government affairs. For 33 years from 1953 he served on the Lake County Council, 16 of them as Chairman, and during that time his driving spirit resulted in extensive roading and bridging programmes which have provided access to hitherto isolated areas and greatly increased the tourist potential of the whole region. He was appointed a foundation member of the Mount Aspiring National Park Board in 1964 and of the Clutha-Central United Council in 1980 (Chairman for 6 years); he also served as NZ Counties representative on the NZ Environmental Council for 7 years. Tommy, with his broad education and experience in mining engineering and geology, and his intimate knowledge of farming and the land, was clearly an ideal man to have in local government. He tells me that he can say, without hesitation, the foundation of training he received as a student of the Otago School of Mines was the basis of any successes he enjoyed in later years. He now lives in semi-retirement on Earnslaw Station in the mountain environment he and Reta love so much. TYSON, Brian ("Bun"), Frank, BSc, BE, AOSM (1928). Tyson received his secondary school education at Otago Boys' High School and enrolled in the OU School of Mines in 1924. During 1929 he reported on gold-bearing properties in NZ for the Siamese Tin Syndicate Ltd. and then joined the staff of PCCL at Sungei Lembing, in Malaya. He was appointed Underground Manager in 1935, a position he held until the Japanese attacked Malaya. He was commissioned into the British Army and volunteered, with another member of the PCCL staff, to stay behind the enemy lines and report their movements via radio. For 13 months they evaded capture but eventually Tyson contracted severe malaria and died in the jungle in northern Johore on January 26 1943. The news of his death was confirmed only after the re-occupation of Malaya late in 1945. WATT, Leslie Ian. He completed the course for the AOSM at the OU School of Mines in1932 but never wrote the thesis required for the Diploma. I cannot recall much of his career after he left the University, but I do know that he went to Malaya to work, I think, for Straits Tin Fields Ltd., probably around 1940. He was taken POW when Singapore fell to the Japanese, and died in captivity. Note: The year given in brackets after AOSM is the date when the person was awarded that Diploma. Sometimes a few years might elapse after classes were completed and the Diploma was awarded; this would be due to the person taking that time to write and submit the necessary thesis. The term "graduate" is sometimes applied to holders of the AOSM, even though they did not hold a degree. AOSM was awarded after a fairly demanding 4-year course of lectures, and practical work underground in mines and on the Geological Survey, and would undoubtedly have been a degree if OU had not abrogated its earlier right to grant its own degrees. Statistics: Taken prisoner by the Japanese (POW) Interned by the Japanese (civilians) Total prisoners or interned Died or killed as prisoners Died from ill-treatment as internee Killed or died in action, Malaya Killed or died in action in other theatres Total killed or died through war

10 4 14 61% 4 1 2 2 9 39%

Sources 1. A somewhat incomplete set of reports by Directors of the OU School of Mines: These were published as booklets [“The Bulletin” _Ed] financed from contributions by former graduates in memory of their earlier colleagues who had died. The OU Library or the Hocken may have copies. 2. Who's Who in New Zealand, 12ed. 1991. 3. OU booklets, Ceremony of Conferring Degrees, for the years 1932, 33, 34 and 36.

4. My own somewhat fallible memory. I knew all the men listed, some better than others. Many were personal friends. There is more information about me than most of the others, since it was easier to recall! E. & OE! J.B.Mackie,Emeritus Professor, Nelson, N.Z January 1998 & March 1999 [Two documents blended _Ed].

How Low Can You Go? August 13, 2003 Tech republic e-magazine The Kola Superdeep Borehole, located in Russia's Kola Peninsula, reached a final depth of more than 12 kilometers. The project began in the early 1970s as a strictly scientific measure. Over the next three decades, Russian teams employed exotic drilling techniques in an effort to breach the 12-kilometer barrier. The Borehole's depth is as much a testament to perseverance as it is to technical prowess. A similar U.S. endeavor, dubbed Project Mohole, reached less than a kilometer in depth before political and technical obstacles prompted Congress to cut funding in 1966, only five years after the project began. Project Mohole sought to penetrate the Earth's crust at its thinnest--below the ocean's surface. The only western excavation that came close to the Borehole's depth--and was briefly the record holder for the world's deepest manmade hole--is the Bertha Rogers oil well in Oklahoma. The well reached a final depth of more than 9.5 kilometers before it impacted a molten sulfur deposit in 1974. Naturally, the Bertha Rogers oil well was part of a commercial venture and provided relatively few scientific discoveries. The Kola Superdeep Borehole eventually overtook the Rogers well and has outpaced all competing efforts to remain one of the "deepest" scientific achievements in history.

Epilogue Well folks, that’s about it for now. Hope you enjoy this little epistle . . . . feedback is welcomed, as are contributions for the next one, about mid 2005. My apologies to anyone whose contribution has been omitted or modified beyond recognition. Put it down to senility. Hasta la vista!

John Neilson Phone : Mobile:

61 61

2 6586 1529 402 463 492

18 October 2004 15 River Ridge Wauchope,NSW,2446 Australia

Addresses Note that a gap in the username indicates an underscore ‘_’ which disappears beneath the underline. Azizuddin: [email protected]

Parata: [email protected]

Billinghurst: [email protected]

Price: [email protected]

Braithwaite: [email protected]

Reid: [email protected]

Broad: [email protected]

Riley: [email protected]

Brown: [email protected]

Sparrow: [email protected]

Buchan: [email protected]

Stewart: [email protected]

Buckenham: [email protected]

Taylor: [email protected]

Buist: [email protected]

Thomson: [email protected]

Debeurger: [email protected]

Warnaar: [email protected]

Donkin: [email protected]

Webster: [email protected]

Gibbs: [email protected]

Wildye: [email protected]

Gordon: [email protected] Graveson: [email protected] Guinivere: [email protected]

No Internet Access

Hannah: [email protected] Harraway: [email protected] Hogg: [email protected] Hunt: [email protected] Jackson: [email protected] Jones L: [email protected] Kay: [email protected] Kelly: [email protected]

Blaikie, Alistair 291 Belmore Road North Blawyn, Vic, 3104 Doig, Kevin 13 Taipara Avenue Raglan,2051,New Zealand Floyd, Doreen (Bob Deceased) 384 Busby Road Katikati, New Zealand

Kininmonth: [email protected] Laing: [email protected] Lee: [email protected] Levinsohn : [email protected] Lindqvist: [email protected] Mackie : [email protected] McKenzie [email protected] McQuillan: [email protected]

Lyon, George 588 Waitoa Road Welcome Bay,Tauranga, New Zealand McGregor ,Wally 129 Curtis Road, North Tamberine, Qld, 4272. Peirson, Bob 13 Park Avenue, Chatswood NSW, 2067

Metcalf : [email protected] Neilson: [email protected] Nyi: [email protected]

If you know of any others, please advise me (JN)