MR TRAVERS' REPORT ON CANTERBURY REEFS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXI, Issue 7227, 29 April 1884, Page 5

MR TRAVERS' REPORT ON CANTERBURY REEFS.

TO THE HDITOB. Sir,—With your kind permission, I will enlighten the Canterbury public with regard to a few matters touched on in Dr Hector's report, "upon the quartz reefs generally in the Wilborforce district." With reference to Mr H. 11. Travers, I emphatically deny that ho is qualifiod to report upon theso reefs or any other reefs. Had Mr Travers gone over the reefs (ho hardly loft my camp for three 'days) I could have shown him stone, such as is being worked in Reofton in some of the mines. If my many years* exporieneo on that goldfield is worth anything, wo have here limestone all round us, and reefs running through limestone, and to use Dr Hector's own words, in the oloso proximity of granite masses; if that constitutes peculiar conditions, then the Wik berforcereefsaro'*init." The stone Mr Travers had given him came from tho reef the highest up the range that any prospectors about here know of. There is a reef carrying gold 1800 ft below this in the Unknown Creek. The report says what would bo misleading to any one knowing the country, that the Unknown Creek is an "eastern tributary of the Stewart branch of the Wilberforco," whereas the Unknown Creek is the extreme south-western branch of the

river Wilberforce. Now, Sir, with reforenco to Mr Travers hinmelf, \ happened to meet him, with two othfr gontlemen, on tho Wilberforco river, looking for Moa Creek. Aa I knew thoy could not possibly reach the Moa Creek Company's camp that night, I offered to put them up at my camp. This was on tho evening of Feb. 25 last. On Fob. 28 ho left, after dinner, I think. During that time Mr Travers did not go out of tho Unknown Creek river bed, collecting Alpine plants, he : told me, to send to England, and it was either raining or snowing all the time ho was with me. Had Mr Travers told mo that he was reporting for Government, instead of " collecting plants to send to England," I should havo tried to let him see the reefs and givon him all the reliablo information I knew of myself. Mr Travers says the early snows had begun to fall, Mr Editor, we havo had no summer until within tho last six weeks, and tho weather could not be finer than at present—thermometer standing between 70 and 80 degrees in tho shade. So much for early snow. Mr Travers, I positively assert, was never within six miles of Browning's Pass, although the report says he brought stone from thero. Any information Mr Travers got was merely derived from conversation. Now, Sir, I leave tho public to judge whether any portion of Dr Hector's report should have any weight as regards the prospect of a goldfield in Canterbury considering tho unreliable sources from which his information was obtained.—l am, &c, H. D. MACPHERSON, Mining Manager North Creek Gold-mining* Company. Unknown Creek, Wilberforco District, April 12.