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Greymouth Evening Star, 12 March 1940, Page 8

Aviation has a new heraldic device. A crown showing association with the air has been established by the heraldic authorities in England. It is to be called the Astral Crown, and carries wings and stars alternating. The new crown forms part of the badge recently sanctioned by the King for No 1 Flying Training School, and it will be available for granting, with armorial bearings, to distinguished officers in the Royal Air Force and to persons or corporations especially connected with aviation, whether military or civil. Different types of crowns, or coronets, associated with the Services or various aspects of civil life, have been in existence for a considerable time. The Naval Crown, for instance, consists of the sterns and sails of ships alternating. Interesting comment about early gold-dredging in Otago has followed a paper on “The Design of Gold Dredges,” presented recently in Wellington at the annual conference of the New Zealand Institute of Engineers. The first gold dredges in the world were developed' and used in Central Otago, and the earliest one worked the stretch of the Molyneux River, near Beaumont, in the ’nineties. The author of the paper commented that the type used at Beaumont (the “spoon” dredge) was suitable for working “inland” claims, but it has been pointed out that this would be impossible, as such a dredge could not be operated without a strong current of water. The owner of the one near Beaumont was Mr John M'lntyre, and' the manager was Mr I. Templeton. Later it was dismantled, and the Tuapeka County Council purchased the pontoons to serve as approaches to the punt at Tyson and Dunlop’s sawmill, at Black Cleugh (11 miles below Beaumont).