DEATH OF A PROSPECTOR.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8549, 1 August 1893, Page 5

DEATH OF A PROSPECTOR.

On Sunday the body of the late Mr Andrew Spillard, who had been missed from Waikari since Saturday, July 15th, was found by one of his sons and Constable Johnston in the Hurunui river bed. Tne deceased appeared to have fallen from a precipitous bank. Aα inquest was to be held last evening at Waikari by Mr H. W. Bishop, R.M. The deceased had spenb some years of his life as a ferryman at Kaiapoi on the site of the present traffic bridge. By trade he was a carpenter and cabinet maker, but had spent much time in search for gold, minerals and precious stones on the eastern rauges of Canterbury. In 1883 he was much interested in the search for diamonds an Alford Forest, and wrote to the Ashburton Mail raising the theory that the so-called diamonds were "fossilised gum," which stood the acid tests, but would not resist heat and the blow pipe. He pronounced the stones of no value 'as diamonds, when nearly every one else was raging after them. In a letter to a member of the staff of this journal in September, 1884, Mr Spillard sent an interesting account of an. excursion to the Black Hills, near to the Hurunui (which part of the country he has been recently revisiting), forwarding some specimens of sand for glass-making, which were tried and found in every way suitable for manufacture of first-class - glass, but the cost of getting the sand told against the enterprise. He, on that trip, pointed out that he had met in the Black Hills with various minerals, alao stone suitable for hydraulic lime-making. In this letter, Mr Spillard said, "I am looking forward, with pleasure, to add my mite some day to the industries of my adopted country, and never was there a time when it was more needed, as I feel confident that we are bound to descend in the financial scale for a very long time, to come as we possess so very little raw material to keep our population at something like profitable employment throughout the year. The little I have done has been at my own expense, and my circumstances only allow mc to make short trips of investigation." He first took an interest in prospecting and mineralogy through assisting Dr. Grundy, of Christchurch, some thirty years ago. It is indeed a matter for regret that a man in Mr Spillard's position should come by his death from either exposure or through accident in his laudable and patriotic efforts to open the mining induatry, which he was apparently following up at the time of his death.