MINING IN MOTU AREA

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 218, 10 June 1933, Page 8

MINING IN MOTU AREA

Inspection of Workings PROSPECTS DISCUSSED Dominion Special Service. Gisborne, June 9. Work carried out at Motu by a party of prospectors under subsidy - from the Unemployment Board will be put to the test of success or failure within the next fortnight, it Is anticipated, when specimens of rock from the workings established in the Motu hills are passed upon by Government experts at Wellington. In the course of a visit to the workings yesterday, the mayor, Mr. John Jackson, secured the specimens for analysis, and spent some time examining the prospects from the point of view’ of a practical miner. He was not deeply impressed with the possibility of finding gold in the Motu country, but expressed to-day the opinion that other minerals of value may be obtained there, while the best prospect of all seemed to him to be the chance of opening up coal deposits at a point some distance from where the gold prospectors are at work. Mr. Jackson formed the impression that there was a good chance of finding coal in the region, further back in the mountains, where the marine blue rock outcrops. On the West Coast, according to his experience, deposits of coal were frequently found in close neighbourhood with the marine blue rock, and the general conditions at Motu seemed to him to be favourable There were rumours of coal having been found in an outcrop some time ago in

the Motu district, and this served to strengthen his impression. , If the result of the expert analysis of bls specimens was adverse. Mr. Jackspn stated, he would recommend the abandonment of the effort to locate gold there. Superficially, conditions did not favour the prospectors, and their work and experience probably could be better employed elsewhere. The mayor mentioned that there was another area in the district to which attention might be directed, this being on the East Coast, inland from Te Araroa. In that are:., where the rock formation was much more stable than anywhere south of that point along the coast, there had been reported a find of gold quartz, made in the early days of settlement by a surveyor in the Government service. Samples of the quartz had been taken by the surveyor, but apparently had not been submitted to analysis, as they had gone astray. From what he had heard of the locality of the find, said Mr. Jackson. the prospects were decidedly more promising than those on which the Motu campaign had been launched.