GOLDMINING

Grey River Argus, 23 October 1936, Page 11

GOLDMINING

LAWSON’S FLAT WASH-UP. The seerqtary of the Lawson’s Flat Gold Sluicing Company, Ltd., reports that the iwiash-upi for the three weeks ended Oetobes 20 resulted ia 51 <> z3 13 dwts of retorted goid. BOY’S ESSAY. The following essay pn gold mining the work of a boy of ten years, Alex* ander Sidney Fry of Waimairi school, is of interest in view of his age as well as its contents: —- Mining for gold on the West Coast of New Zealand is carried on in several different ways. Many men spend years hunting for the precious metal that is sometimes found deep down in the giound or in quartz. As I have mentioned theie are several different ways of gold mining, one of which is dredging. Dredging is accomplished on rivers by a huge raft, something like a house-boat, only it has machinery on. board instead of'a house. At one end of the dredge is a long projectile like a crane on which is an endless belt on which are many strong iron buckets. This belt keeps moving so that the buckets go up one side and down tho other. When the buckets go down they pick up a large amount of sand and stones and as they go up the other side they tip the dirt and stones out into enormous sieves which sift all the fine sand way. This fine sand is tiped out on to mats while the large stones are tipped out into enormous heaps outside the dredge. Water runs over these mats washing the sand away and leaving the gold stuck to the mats winch are washed by the miners who pick out the pieces of gold which sometimes weigh up to a few pounds and are worth a fair amount of money. Another popular way of digging gold is by picking and blasting tremendous amounts of quartz and crushing them into little blocks which are passed through large iron tubes where there-is a. heavy stamper which crushes it to powder. A stream of wate r also runs through these tubes washing the powder away and leaving the tiny grains of gold which are heavy and sink to the bottom'. Another way of finding gold is by panning it. This is done by picking up a handful of sand from a creek bed and putting It in a dish something like a frying pan with tall sides and no handle. Fossicking .is what this is called, the men being called fossiekers These men sit by a creek with a panning dish and let a stream of water fill the dish. Next he washes it round gradually letting all the mud go out leaving the gold in the dish. If a man finds a place where there is gold bearing rock or sand he peg* out a claim' but, he can not have this land for nothing for he has to have a miner’s right and pay about five shillings a year 'f he wants to peg out claim.*. When a man pegs out a claimin' puts a post at each corner of the claim, slits are put in this post, sticks are put in these slits each pointing along the boundary line of the claim. Some men who are called beach combers make their living by getting the gold out of the sand on the shore. These men have a thing like a box without ends, in this trough is a piece of blanket or matted coconut fibre. When the. day’s work is done the beach comber washes the blanket or fibre and' picks the gold out of it. Sluicing is another way of obtaining gold. This is done by force of water only. The shiicers find a lake as far up in the mountains as possible and then they lay pipes from the lake down to the place they are going to sluice. One man holds a nozzle through which water is gushing with terrific force. The man points the nozzle at a hill and the force of the water brings down a large amount of earth, rock, sand, ete., which flow’s into a stream' or river but. the gold settles on the bottom where wooden blocks are nailed which catch the gold. When I was visiting n small dredge once it didn’t have the long projectile with the buckets on for it only had a winch to draw up the buckets. On tho whole a fair amount of New Zealand’s wealth is obtained by gold mining. ALEX FRY.