Kaiser’s Quest Is For Gold

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32005, 4 June 1969, Page 1

Kaiser’s Quest Is For Gold

The Kaiser Aluminium and Chemical Corporation, which has puzzled Christchurch geologists with its application for a warrant to prospect part of Canterbury’s east coast beach—from Banks Peninsula south to the mouth of the Rangitata River—announced in Wellington yesterday that it intends to search for gold.

“We are not interested in semi-precious stones, or in garnet, or in oil, only in gold,” said a Kaiser spokesman yesterday. The corporation’s application was filed by Mr C. E. Michener, of Wellington, a Canadian geologist who is consultant to the corporation. Kaiser’s spokesman in Wellington said yesterday that the corporation was interested in large prospects. Kaiser specialised In heavy earth-moving machinery. Gold, according to - the Kaiser spokesman, has never

been worked east of the Southern Alps in Canterbury.

It has, however, certainly been looked for. As early as 1861, after the rush to Gabriel’s Gully, in Otago, the Canterbury Provincial Government offered a reward of £lOOO for the discovery of a goldfield in Canterbury, provided it was “reasonably accessible” to Christchurch, and subject to the approval of the Provincial Geologist (then Mr Julius von Haast) as to its paying capabilities. Von Haast himself, in January, 1862. led the search for gold m Canterbury. He had most confidence in the headwaters of the Waitaki River, and accompanied by Arthur Dudley Dobson explored and prospected the Godley and Tasman Rivers, but found, in the words of his biographer, H. F. von Haast, “not gold, but glaciers and glory.” Gold fever was again abroad in Canterbury in 1869 —in spite of von Haasfs repeated views that gold would not be found east of the Southern Alps, in Canterbury. The so-called McQueen’s reef, near Gebbies Pass, on Banks Peninsula, was under the eye

of a Christchurch group which proposed the formation of a company to prospect it Later, writing in his “Geology of Canterbury and Westland” about the absence of gold in Canterbury, von Haast wrote: “Even the negative evidence is valuable, as it will, or ought to be, the means of saving the pockets of many colonists, who, either guided by incorrect statements of mineral prospectors, or by deceptive appearances, would otherwise invest their money on mining adventures which, as the geological evidence before us proves, must be certain failures.”

Von Haast, in 1866, had already examined the area, where he found about five square miles of old slaty rocks, apparently of the nature of the gold-bearing rocks of Otago. Von Haast told a public meeting in Christchurch in 1869 that be had shown rock specimens from McQueen’s reef to Dr Hector, the Otago Provincial Geologist, who thought they looked auriferous—but von Haast had been unable to find any quartz reefs there.

This, however, did not prevent the registration of the Canterbury Gold Prospecting Company, Ltd, with 200 shares of £5 each, £1 a share called up. “From all sides in Canterbury came in tales of prospecting parties discovering reefs on the Peninsula or in the ranges . . .” says H. F. von Haast, in his “Life and Times of Sir Julius von Haast.”

“Representatives of the Prospecting Company and members of the Provincial 'Council drove out in a four-in-band to inspect McQueen's reef, got up an appetite scrambling about on the hillside, enjoyed a capital luncheon at McQueen’s house, and although they had seen no gold, returned with sanguine and roseate views.”

Companies continued to be promoted—the Rakaia Goldmining Company, the Lyttelton Gold Prospecting Company, the Lyttelton Enterprise Goldmining Company, the Peninsula Gold Company and places such as the Orari Gorge, Pudding Hill (Methven), the Esk River, the Waipara River, and the

Malvern Hills were all mentioned as likely goldfields.

Such companies spent large sums on prospecting, sinking shafts, erecting plant and buildings, and crushing quartz but no gold was gained. In 1882, several lodes were discovered in the headwaters of the' Wilberforce River, and prospected spasmodically for the next 30 years. The only gold lodes ever to. be found in Canterbury, these outcrops .were at 5000 •to 6000 ft and under snow in winter. Claim names such as Wilson’s Reward, Fidde’s Reef, and Pfahlert’s Reef came into being. But an attempt to intersect Wilson’s Reward at depth in a low-level 1000 ft tunnel was unsuccessful, the portal having long since been covered by shingle slides. G. J. Williams, in his “Economic Geology of New Zealand,” says of these Wilber-

force lodes: “While specimens yielding as much as 13oz per ton were quoted, over-all figures of considerably less than ,soz are probably more realistic.”