Parihaki.

Northern Advocate, 9 December 1893, Page 4

Parihaki.

•9 THE NEW MINING FIELD. THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD. THE GEOLOGICAL FORMATION. As a gtiod deal of interest . is now taken iii this hill, where gold has been found, a lijtlfe i£forniatioii about thfe great bleak-rlopkipg mountain Trill not be amissi For 1 over two yeats, it has been known that silver occurred in Parihaki ; that was proved during the Puhipuhi excitement, and off and on since then, O'Donoghue, a gunidigger, has fossicked the hill and had stuff tried at different times with varying results, mostly of an unpayable character. Recently, however, lie took a number of samples to Mr G. Olark- Walker for assay, and Mr Walker discovered that one of these samples contained 590/8, of silver. This, O'Ddndghue said 'came from Mr D; Hbrn's property ; Mr Walker did not " jjar't " the bead for gold, but later, Mi' Xi Reybur'n, whose property adjoins that of Mr Hdrii's, had his ground prospected, and samples were sent by Mr W. A. Carruth to Mr Rhodes, assayer to the Bank of N.Z., Paeroa, and word came back that the ore contained gold, and in payable quantities, the value ranging from £2 5/ to £6 2/ per ton. Mr Nicl McLean, about the same time; split a number of samples to the , Thames School of Mine's, and got back results almost similar to those obtaiiled by Mr Carruth. To prevent any doubt on the subject, Mr Carruth sent further samples selected by himself, and again got payable results, the f alue per ton running as high as £7 3/.- Meantime, Mr G. Clark- Walker was assaying the ore, and also got gold. There is little doubt now as to the presence di goldj the question being one as to its paying character, and on Wednesday last a Prospecting Association was formed to thoroughly prospect the ground,- open a number df fftcefy arid send samples away preparatory to having a built test made by the cyanide process. The Association consists of fifteen, and Messrs W. A. Carruth, H. R. Cooke and G. E. Alderton were appointed a Committee of managetaien't; The Parihaki hill has always been considered geologically a kaolin formation : that is decomposed granite, and being of a primary formation — the oldest of rocks — might, in fact, should be metalliferous. At Broken Hill, for instance, the richest silver ore there is in the kaolin formation. But how Parihaki got just where it is, is one 1 of those freaks which geologists have to account for 1 theoretically. It should be some hundreds of feet below the surface, but we find it a high hill thrown right up through other strata, standing sentinel over Whangarei at an elevation of 800 feet. The evidence all around shows that this hill has cracked through the later strata and has been " erupted " by an earthquake wave or volcanic action. If you follow its inclination at the north end, it will be seen to strike directly down towards the Paranui bridge 1 , and if one cares to investigate further, he will find this kaolin formation immediately under the basaltic walls over which the Whangarei Falls pours its never-ceasing torrent. In other words, if you draw a line from the top of Parahaki to the foot of the Whangarei Falls, it will be seen that the mountain dips exactly to that inclination, and at the foot of the falls — under the basaltic walls — is seen the same kaolin formation, evidently at one time part of the erupted mountain. From this, the inference is that the mountain should be flattened out, and lying under the basaltic formation, in which case it would be under the water, where it was once. Taking another view of the geological formation around us, and we find th© basaltic stratum in the walls of the Whangarei Falls, Bedlington's falls and the falls at the Black Bridge, Horahora. Overlying this stratum in the Whangarei-Karao Valley, and the Maunu plateau, is volcanic lava and ash, formed by volcanoes. Whangarei itself is merely a raised beach of alluvium. Parihaki is seen to have been erupted : sent right up through these later strata. This is merely important as showing that it is geologically a formation in which gold and silver might occur. It has been said that Parihaki is composed of rhyolitic tuff or tufa : volcanic ash, and that it is similar to the tufa met with down the East Coast and in the interior ; and being tufa cannot be metalliferous, nor contain gold or silver, but if it does so, the formation is unique. The question as to its precise geological formation has, however, been submitted to an expert geologist, and his opinion will be awaited with interest. As to the payable nature of the Parihaki ore, that will depend on quantity. So far, it has not been proved whether the gold is generally disseminated right through the kaolin or whether it merely occurs in veins or pockets. The whole hill is kaolin from the river bed to the top of the mountain, nothing in the form of quartz or hard stone is to be found on the surface; it is figuratively just one large deposit of friable cement, and the whole hill could be brought down by a stream of water. Being on the river bank, and the hill being nearly free from any timber, the mining of the hill would be probably the cheapest on record. However, so many false hopes have been raised on the prospects of a show of gold, that we need only say that so far nothing has been proved beyond the mere occurrence of gold ; whether it is there in quantity there is no evidence to show, but steps will be immediately taken to prove the matter. If it is disseminated throughout this kaolin or mica-schist, or whatever geologists may term it, even a few pennyweights to the ton would pay, if a large plant to treat it were erected.

The Customs revenue for the colony for the month of November was £128,117, or about £10,000 less than the previous month. Auckland contiibuted£29,3'24, Dunedin £27,410, Wellington £27,316, Lyttelton and Chriatchurch £21,511. The total for the eight months of the financial year is £1,099,276, or £19,C76 above the estimates for that period. At the Supreme Court this week, Moffatt, of Farua, onarged with breaking in and stealing a gun, etc., pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 9 monthr imprisonment. Madame Melba made a successful and riumphant debut at New York.