NATURE'S TREASURES

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 22, 27 January 1931, Page 12

NATURE'S TREASURES

(To the Editor.) g; r —Your correspondence in last Saturday's issue would be read with great interest by: hundreds interested in the Southern Sounds. The writer can safely say he has had more experience than any other living person in the Dominion to-day with regard to prospecting tor minerals,. plants, birds, etc., and . I am pleased to hear that three geologists have gone to Preservation Inlet. They will find more minerals there of an assorted class than in any part of Australia and New Zealand—pyrites, copper and arsenical, in large quantities; manganese, gold, and; platinum; have also been found, together with a percentage of indium and palladium, but a German geologist and I failed to trace any scheelite, tungstate o£ zinc, or walffam. Judging by the formation of the country, however, both the latter should be located about Caswell Sound; tin and indications of cinnabar , were also found in several of the Sounds. A large German company was formed with considerable capital, after the Government "of New Zealand had declined a large sum for the rights to deal with the Taranaki and Parapara iron lands, etc., about 1909. They then sent a geologist and a mining gentleman from South Africa, and the.result of their investigations turned out as enumerated above from samples of ores, pyrites, etc., taken from Preservation Inlet. Good oil was also found between Orepuke and Tuatapere, and they were quite satisfied that petroleum- existed inland about Nightcaps and across to Waikia. Since the war I have received no word, although their correspondence indicated that they would" arrive in New Zealand early and start developing the minerals. I. now await good results of the geologists who recently left the Bluff for the West Coast Sounds. It was very interesting also to hear that Their Excellencies the Governor-General and Lady Bledisloe had left for the same 'Sounds.This visit will prove one of the greatest advertisements for the Tourist Department, as Their Excellencies are both lovers of birds and scenery, and I am sure they will be entranced with the beauties of Nature, so fresh and so untouched by the hand of man. Their visit will probably be the means of assisting the Government to explore these Sounds for minerals. I have advocated long since for the Government to send out parties to prospect these Sounds, the Southern Alps, and the Fiordland National Park of' two and a quarter million acres, the "Manawstu Times" started the ball moving with my suggestion to absorb the unemployed. Victoria and West Australia have adopted the plan, and there are numbers of good miners who have worked with ore in Queensland, West Australia, and New Guinea handy, who would go to-morrow if assisted, • and allowed to- pick four or five men to accompany them. I personally would guide any party to virgin ground where I know gold and tin are to be found.—l am, etc., ERNEST B. SMITH. Palmerston North, 26th January.