GOLD IN KENYA

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 March 1932, Page 10

GOLD IN KENYA

EUROPEANS SEEKING FORTUNES

Considerable interest has been aroused at Nairobi, Kenya, South Africa, in the recent discoveries of gold at Kakamega, and although are are not to be compared with the great fields in the past in the K.londyke and Australian fields, there is reason to believe that the alluvial deposits are more extensive than was at first surmised. Kakamega lies twenty miles north of Kisumu, the railhead on the north-eastern shore of Lake Victoria.

. The workings have been confined to rivulets feeding the river Yala, and it would be hard to guess that the hot valleys even • now shelter 400 European prospectors and their attendant natives. Prospectors’ licenses cost only a few shillings, and there is a. tax of 10/- levied on each claim staked.

Many farmers, tired of growing maize to feed the locusts, have turned their eyes to Kakamega, and have set out in their lorries for the goldfields. It is thought that richer deposits, and even nuggets will be discovered when the workings have been further developed.

At present the- new prospector stakes his claim on a certain stream and spends the first few days clearing the.rich alluvial deposit from the gold streak, which may be Ift or 2ft below the surface. Then, having constructed his channel for washing, he begins operations in earnest. The gold streak may be 2ft or 3ft thick, but below that the bed of the stream yields nothing.