GOLD IN SAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 100, 29 April 1940, Page 4

GOLD IN SAND.

WESTLAND TREASURE.

£4000 IN FEW WEEKS. PRIMITIVE METHODS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) HOKITIKA, this day. Many rich gold returns have been received by miners working the beaches of the West Coast over periods of years. For years, the beaches lay undisturbed, but once rough weather sete in and heavy seas pound the beaches, rich, goldbearing layers of black sand are expose/l. A few weeks ago the residents of Bruce Bay noticed the beach beginning to cut and they made all haste in preparing to wash the black sand layere. The plant to work the beaches is very primitive. It comprises a copper plate about four feet in length and about two fee.t in width. This plate is placed in a box frame giving a slope of one foot in three. At the top end of the plate, an ordinary packing box is used as a holding box for the black sand, and a email barrel ie placed alongside the packing case, with a email outlet hole, to allow the water to slowly wash the black sand over the copper, plate.

The copper plate is coated with quicksilver, which catches the gold as it passes over the. plate. At the end of the day the quicksilver and gold are cleaned off the plate and the whole is then placed in a match box or suitable container and placed in a lire. The. Jieat removes the quicksilver from the gold and the pure gold ie then easily saved.

During the last few weeks the miners have secured over £4000 worth of gold. The next rough sea will probably cover once more the black sand, and it may be many years before the leads are again exposed. Even behind the town of Hokitika, at the rear of Revell Street, rich layers of gold-!>earing lihick sand are known to exist. In l'.H-l, when the. sea eroded the beach and washed many backyards and portion of huailleAe premises to sea. rich layers of black sand were exposed and miners were quick to realise the wealth that was waiting for them.