KAWARAU GOLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 66, 19 March 1925, Page 13

KAWARAU GOLD.

(To tiie Editor.) Sir.—Having been, brought up on the fcanka e£ the Mqlywaivt; and been a prospector and goldniiner for many years., especially on rivers, I feel interested in the above. My experience on rivers, both, big and" small, has always been that any patch of gold is beached; in other words, washed up on beaches where it 'has accumulated. These beaches or points are sometimes quite a distance apart, with, little or no payable gold in the part between, and nothing where the heavy current of water is, nor in the deep pools. .New cium miners generally look into these deep pools, and sigh for the tons of gold they mentally picture, whereas the knowing old miner looks for the points where the gold lia3 been thrown up very often high and dry. This very often happens at a bend in a river. 1 have found very payable gold in the grass feet above the river at such a bend. Once I got over lOOoz from such a patch. Gold appears not to stop m a heavy current, but to deposit on a beach as far away from the current aa possible. It is tfie same with all alluvial gold, let it bs in a river or not; it has travelled by water, and the patches are found where it has taken shelter and accumulated, sometimes leaving scarcely a trace o£ which way it came or went, owing to there being too much fall or current for gold to stop. JXy opinion is that Kawarau be the death blow to mining ventures ijj Xew Zealand for many years to come.—l am, etc., PROSPECTOR. [This correspondence is closed.—Ed.]