SEARCH FOR MINERALS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 66, 19 March 1931, Page 6

SEARCH FOR MINERALS.

PROSPECTORS AND FOSSICKERS. (To tlie Editor.) I notice tliat the Government has granted £2000 to enable the Mines Department to engage up to 100 unemployed married men to prospect for minerals. This may be all right as far as unemployment is concerned, but I am afraid that the prospecting results will not be of the best. The Government does not understand that gold miners are not prospectors; time has proved that they will not prospect away from where gold has already been found. Sinking a few holes in such places is not prospecting —it is better known to old miners as fossicking. There have always been hundreds of fossickers looking for gold where others have left, and they never enrich the country much, as they will not venture 011 to new ground. A sum like £2000 spent carefully would do a lot ' of good honest prospecting which might later give employment to many thousands of people. A few small parties cf three men are what is wanted, one man in each party to have experience if possible. During over fifty years on many goldfields and out of thousands of gold miners, I have only known of three men who could be calledexperienced alluvial prospectors. Very few will stick to prospecting long enough to gain any experience whatever. The Government of to-day is offering 39/ per week for pros, pectors to explore and find gold for the goodof the country; is it any wonder that gold mining is gradually going down when new fields are of so little value and prospecting so little understood? 1867. °