KAWARUA GOLD

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 2 September 1932, Page 8

KAWARUA GOLD

DEVELOPMENT WORKS SITE FOR SECOND DAM. The proposal further to exploit the possibilities of gold winning on the Kawarau River by the erection of another dam was advanced another stage last week as the result of the A’isit to Central Otago of Messrs H. Credgington, of Melbourne, and T. Ritchie, of Dunedin, directors of the Amalgamated Kawarau Company. They were joined in Cromwell by Mr. ' James Ritchie, of Bannockburn, another director of the company. Tlie party explored the river for some days and finally decided tentatively upon a site below the junction of the Arrow River with the Kawarau. Mr. Credgington referred in an in

torview to the minor boom in gold winning that had taken place in Central Otago during the past few weeks. Cromwell, he said, was full of ciptimi.sts, and tradespeople in the borough were emphatic on tlie subject of the. benefit that had accrued to the town as a. result of the operations of the unemployed' miners on the Kawarau River.

“L was told in Cromwell,” said Mr. Credgington, “that tlie estimate oi 1000 ounces, which is said to represent the harvest reaped in the past five weeks, could be doubled, and there would be little, if any, exaggeration. [ had that cm the authority of a prominent citizen who has closely followed the work on the river.”

Speaking of the site of the proposed new dam, Mr. Credgington said it lay about a quarter of a mile .below the point where the Arrow entered the larger river. There was ail abutment

into the course of the Kawarau here that provided a very convenient bend

which would allow of the provision of a by-pass tunnel through which the water could be diverted while the foundations of tlie dam were being put in. The new dam would not require to be more than half the width of the existing dam. Once the water was held up tlie company would concentrate on a patch of river just above the natural bridge where they knew there was no overburden. Rich .gold could be had easily at that point. The proposal to dam the river in this way pointed the way to the establishment oi a new industry in Central Otago which might be termed river-bed mining, and comprised getting right to the actual bottom of the river among the boulders

and mining the natural rock, the crevices of which undoubtedly held large quantities of gold. When the dam was closed, he continued, the river would bo a series of water holes which would have to beemptied by pumping. The huge boulders which strewed the bed of the river would have to be removed by crane, and each section of the river would have to be cleaned up piecemeal. It would be learned by experience what length of the river could be worked efficiently at one time, but it was thought that from a quarter to half a mile would be about the limit. Each season would bring its own lessons, and the measure of success would depend on the ability of the management to profit by . such experience.