THAMES GOLDFIELD.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 128, 31 May 1901, Page 2

THAMES GOLDFIELD.

foER. X W. WALKER'S PROPOSALS

•JiEPOET BY GOVERNMENT GEOLOGIST.

\ {By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

# WELLINGTON, this day. ' It will bo rememberer! that some Unonths ago Mr. .T. W. Walker, morefamiliarly known as "Long" Drive jF7alker," made certain important proposals to the Government, in connection with tbe development of the He is of opinion thai the country at the front of Thames, ■which contained mines of .Treat richBess in the early days, is in the nature of a slip from the higher range jat the back, and to again find those yich reefs an area some distance bade and to the eastward should be .worked. He applied to the Minister of Mines Cor a considerable area between the rich intrusive rock and the properties along- the line of the foreshore foothills. He is of opinion that the land overhang-ing the Hauraki Gulf, between Tairtia and the Iyaraka. iormerly occupied a much loftier eleyation on some easterly position. .whence it has gravitated to its present position. He thinks that the ftuartz veins in those foothills were iormed and acquired their auriferous •value while in their original position, and that consequently the counter part of the Thames goldfieM will be met with not immediately behind the Moanataiari clay slide, but in some position eastward of Punga Flat. Mr. Walker stated that he was hopeful '■pi obtaining- the necessary capital to test this theory, but to do so he requires an amendment in the mininglaws and special powers being given to the Commissioner to separate, a large area from the operations of the .present regulations. He adds that Jthe Thames Miners' Union had promised to support the project. In consequence of this application Mr. McKay, the Government Geologist, was instructed by the Minister of Mines .to make a special report on the subject of the correspondence of the, !reefs on the east and west sides of fthe Moanataiari slide. As to the question of tracing the reefs of the front lower hills and Grahamstown flat in •the country east'ol the slide, Mr. McKay says, as the strike of the reefs and their dip is almost the same in both areas, and the strike being at Tight angles to the average trend of the slide, it is fair to assume that the reefs of west and east of the slide before the dislocation took place 'formed the higher and lower parts of ihe same reef systems, but it must iilso be borne in mind that shoots of jjold, having a low angle of inclination, would be wholly displaced and carried bodily to the westward of the slide, and that gold found or to be found in the reefs to the eastward of. 'the slide belongs to a lower horizon ihan the main gold shoot on the west side of the slide, except it may be in jthe near vicinity of the slide itself, which shoot of gold might find its continuation along a limited belt of country on the east side of the slide, and adjacent thereto. Beyond the first 500 feet eastward of the slide, jray gold in the reefs is not likely to have formed part of the great shoot 'of gold worked in numerous claims on the west side of the Moanataiari felide. The hope that the gold shoot of the reefs west of the Moanataiari slide will be found in the back hills between Point "Russell and Punga Flat is not well founded, and the same, says Mr. McKay, may be said of any line of section parallel to that mentioned between Shellback and Ilape Cre<fe. The likelihood that the shoot of fcold so richly productive in the foreshore and front hills should also be found east of the Moanataiari slide is disproved by the experience of miners within the area west of the slide. After describing how the ishoot of gold affected many reefs, and how the belt of poor or- barren country was formed between the fault line and Point, Russell, he says that the fact that in shallow workings and at a level of greater depth gold was found right up to the Sloanataiari slide does not affect the question of the. presence of an underlying barren belt, of country. A portion of the upper shoot of gold seems •to have been left on Messarjer s Hill, the barren belt lying below and to *he eastward of that, and the same thing seems to have taken place in ■the western fall of Una Hill. Respecting the original state of things before the fracture of the country and the formation of the Moanataiari slide took place, he says the" popular idea that the country lying westward of the tfault once stood to the eastward vertically over Punga Flat would mean that there was a mountain pile 9000 feet high, and that since the formation of the slide denudation had reduced the land by 6000 feet, which is altogether unreasonable, therefore ♦he scheme of denudation must be discarded and one of restoration adopted that will be reasonable and probable! He thinks it will satisfy most minds to assume that the Moanataiari slide did not displace the lock more than 1000 feet horizontal and vertical. The consequence of such a movement is that only a limited linear extent of the reefs on one or other side of the line of fault finds its equivalent in a higher or lower part on the other side, and according to the assumption it is impossible that rocks as far to the eastward as Punga Flat that had a less elevation than 5000 feet above the sea could by any means be found on the west side of the line of fault. The converse of this is that near Punga Flat it is vain to look for the downward continuations of those parts of the reefs that at low levels lie to the west of the slide. It is to some extent true that the reefs to the east of the fault line are the eastern continuations of those on the west side, but the gold shoots could not have been .the same. "Therefore," says Mr McKay, in conclusion, "there is no probability of finding cither the actual parts of the reefs originally vertically underlying bite portions worked west of the fault, at or in lh«i vicinity of Punga Flat, or at any point east of Point Russell, or eastward Of any point of equal distance along the line of fault. Further, in as* far a:s the shoot of gold affectIng the greater number of the reefs to the went of the Moanatairi slide has been worked out, or at all events passed through, the gold of the reefs in th« hillfl to the eastward of the glide cannot be a continuation of the t«ame." The Upper Moanataiari Creek valley, and the neighbourhood of £uaga Fiat, and.' extension, oj; ihe.

same belt to the north and smith, is therefore to be considered an auriferous area quite independent of that lying to the west of the Moanataiari slide, except in so far as that the lodes' may be a continuation in strike of those to the west of the fault. Be that as it may, this eastern area must be prospected without, reference to anything found on the western part of. the field, and its past history must serve as incentive and for guidance of future prospecting endeavours. How much i.s to be hoped for is shown by the success which has attended prospect ing and attempted developments eince 1895, and 1 am not over sanguine of better results in the future." The report i.s accompanied by a sketch. ■ •