GOLD PROSPECTING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8980, 18 February 1888, Page 5

GOLD PROSPECTING.

ALLEGED VALUABLE DISCOVERY. _ [by TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Cambridge, Friday. The Mayor of Cambridge has called a meeting of inhabitants, to bo held in the town clerk's office this (Saturday) afternoon, at four p.m., to consider if it would not be advisable to form a Prospectors' Association, in order to have Maungakawa and Maungatautari ranges thoroughly searched for gold and other minerals. We think this a step in the right direction, and trust that a strong association may be started. A well known half-caste named James Ransfield came into Cambridge this (Friday) afternoon with several specimens of stone that appear to be strongly impregnated with silver, that he had found while prospecting the Maungatautari Range. The stone is a species of bluish granite, and the metal is plainly visible to the naked eye. Both Mr. Sargent (the jeweller) and Mr. Ward (tho chemist) think it is silver, and the latter has a piece of stone to test. Ransfield had treated a portion of it in the fire, but the metal still remains visible. He is going to send specimens to the School of Mines at the Thames to be tested. If it should prove to be silver, it will be another Broken Hill, as he reports the stone to be 18 feet thick, and extending a considerable distance. The granite is intersected by numerous small veins of quartz, and also by one big one 10 inches thick. Underneath the granite is another vein of quartz, from which he also brought specimens, and in which the metal could bo seen with the aid of ft strong glass. Underneath that is a bed of slate. These are the most genuine specimens we have yet seen, and if the irotal proves to be silver we shall soon have a rush. The find is on Maori ground, on the Kihikihi-Waotu side of the montain. Ransfield lias gone up again to bring down a further supply of the stone.