EARLY PAYS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 19 September 1936, Page 7

EARLY PAYS

THE WAIRAU DIGGINGS AND VALLEY No. 1. (By H. P. Washbourn) It is very difficult to make people of the present day understand or realise the ideas and opinions held by the general public in the sixties, seventies and early eighties, with regard to gold, and gold mining. The idea was that all quartz was rich in gold, and that it only required a battery to crush it and pay good dividends. They could not be made to understand that only some quartz contained payable gold, and although the quartz might continue in quantity, that the gold only occurred in patches and therefore that before going to the expence of erecting crushing machinery, it was necessary by prospecting to prove that there was sufficient quantity and quality to warrant the expenditure for machinery. To give the idea of the times, I will give a local instance. Similar instances were numerous wherever there has been any gold mining. In New Zealand many hundreds of thousands of pounds have been wasted in this way. A man came into town and exhibited a piece of quartz showing gold m il. It was said to have come from the Wangapeka district, and without further enquiry or information a company was formed of £.20,000. They met and ordered a battery, and proceeded to erect it. Another man took a lease adjoining, formed another company, and they met, ordered another battery, and proceeded to erect it. A third 1 called the Waimea Company ordered another battery and it was on its way there (and is still on the way), when the first had a crushing and found there was practically no gold there. Locally, there have been nine batteries erected and only three of them did more than a trial crushing, (and some of them not that); which showed there was no payable gold in the iu bish they nut through. They knew no more about the ground when they took the battery away than they did before they put it up! . This frenzied state of mind culminated in the “keep it dark” boom period. After that, the reaction set m, and the public took no interest m gold mining speculations. Now after ao years there is a revival of interest m them, and it is to be hoped that much saner ideas will prevail. After this long preamble, I will proceed with my trip. Some rich ao.d was discovered in a creek caded the Mahakipawa in the Marlborough district, and of course a rush set in. The gold was very coarse and nuggetty, with a number of pieces about hall gold and half quartz. This was taken to mean that somewhere m tne neighbourhood there must be an extraordinarily rich reef. I was sent down to report on it. and with power to take up any ground that I thought likely to contain it. I started from Nelson early one morning over the old Maungatapu track, and reaching Havelock sent a telegram from there at 4 p.m. The next day I went to the diggings which, being in a very early stage, hac. no public accommodation of any sort, hut a kindly digger shared his bed With ■I was a good judge of the quality of gold and I noticed their sample was a verv good one and asked what they were getting for it. I was told about £3 13s an oz. I told them it was worth a good deal more than that, so I left a letter with them, for the Dominion Analyst, to send with a lewpenny weights of gold. This they evidently did, as about two months later, I received from the Department the analyses which showed that the gold was practically pure, and worth over £4 an oz. This I sent on to them at once. The whole country showed unnnstakeable signs of an old and very deep depression, possibly the one that caused the Sounds by drowning the valleys, and also letting the water through the Strait. Since then the Mahakipawa creek has formed a delta which, if I remember rightly, has covered the top connection of the two sounds and separated them. I did not take up any ground, as I was quite satisfied that the gold was not derived from any reef, but that the gold was derived from small segregations occurring in the rock, concentrated into the creek out of the millions of tons that it had eroded, and washed away down it, leaving the gold in the creek bed. I then went right up the creek to the saddle between it and the Whakikaho, and on the top met five men evidently reef hunting. Where we met, a small birch tree had blown up, exposing the bare rock and showing a small patch of quartz three or four inches thick. ■ I have always had a | quick eye for a speck of gold and [while we were talking I picked up two j pieces showing gold, at which they ! seemed greatly concerned. I said, | “You can have them,” and went on my way down the other creek. I At a later date I was sent to report !on a supposed reef there. I went to ! Renwicktown and took a coach from there up the Wairau Valley. I was j warned to expect very tough accom- [ modation as there was only a shearer's shanty there. ■ I The only other passenger was an I old chap who was digging in the I creek. He was a good natured old fool who had been on the- “bust” for 'a week, during which time he had I not done much in the bath line. He had a sack full of schnapper, which I I judged had lost “the freshness and ! bloom of youth.” These were distri- : buted to his friends on the way.

As we passed a house he got the driver to wait while he got one of the schnapper out of the sack and delivered it at the house, so that I saw and smelt a good deal ot those schnapper. The upper end of the valley was then very much in its natural state of grass, manuka and wild Irishman, and as we got up the valley the houses were very few and far between. (To be continued.)