NEW ZEALAND GOLD NUGGETS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 46, 23 February 1935, Page 15

NEW ZEALAND GOLD NUGGETS.

Irt tlie "Star" of February 16 it is stated tTiat Emeritus professor James Park recalled recently that New Zealand's biggest nugget was unearthed in the early days at Collingwood, and that it weighed about 55 ounces. That statement is erroneous. New Zealand's heaviest nugget of alluvial gold was found about inj -12 on Crown land among old tailings at Ross -township, Westland, by two prospectors. It weighed 99 ounces. It was subsequently raffled for £400. Eventually the Govern-j merit bought it. It was. then fixed on the top of a carved casket and presented to King George. It will now doubtless repose in the vaults of Windsor Castle in company with wealth untold. This nugget was named the "Honorable Roddy," after Roderick McKenzie, then Minister of Mines. A full-sized gilded lithograph of "Roddy," accompanied my official Mines. Department annual report for that year. The second largest .New Zealand gold nugget was found n year or so later by an old' digger working alone (a hatter) at the old Moonlight diggings, Buller River. It weighed about 9() ounces, but vfas much waterworn, being flattened on two sides, showing that it was formerly much larger. "I have handled both these nuggets. I'hc reason why New Zealand nuggets are so much smaller than Australian is that here there has been so much more erosion, both glacial and fluvatile, on our southern goldficlds. FRANK REED, M. Inst.M.M. (Lond.).