NEARLY READY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 230, 29 September 1938, Page 8

NEARLY READY.

NEW GOLD DREDGES.

AMBITIOUS ENTERPRISES.

POWER FROM LAKE COLERIDGE

With the completion eoon of the transmission line taking electric power from Lake Coleridge ? lo the West Coast, big new gold dredges will begin operation on the West Coast. The Minister of Mines (the Hon. P. C. Webb), reviewing on Monday the extension of gold dredging, eaid it was eteadily approaching the etage where it might produce more gold than from mining. The Minister said the new dredge would coet more than £1,000,000 and if they did as well as the Rimu dredge had done, the gold output would be nearly 100,000 ounces per annum.

With the rapid progreee in the construction of dredging plant, low grade wash could now be successfully dredged to a considerable depth, the Minister eaid. For instance, the Rimu dredge in 1987 produced 13.( 100 ounces of gold of value of £116,746 New Zealand currency, lhe value of gold recovered an acre was £3694, whereas the value of the "land dredged was not five shillings an acre for other purposes. The amount of gold tax an acre wae £220, and 43 men were constantly employed. The tailings left after the dredge covered the ground had been planted with pinue insignia, and quite a healthy forest would be grown on the waste tailings. In fact, the trees were growing better on the tailings than on virgin country adjacent to it. If the other large dredges which were now under construction did as well as the Rimu, the total gold output would be nearly 10,000 ounces per annum, and would produce £62,500 in gold tax