THE ROMANCE OF GOLD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13870, 2 October 1908, Page 7

THE ROMANCE OF GOLD.

COROMANDEL'S FUTURE.

• „ SIGNS' OF A REVIVAL.,

"INFLUENCE OF THE PAST.

No. I. :' ' /ROM OUR SPECIAL MINING REPORTER. -' Cokohandkl,' Thursday. '"■■' Non'B of the goldfields in the Auckland district has a more romantic past, or a f. future more full of possibilities than Coro-mandel—-the oldest of them all. It is " difficult to account for the stagnation that has characterised the mining industry hero for some years. In part, it is due, no doubt, to the fact that the gold won has , been patchy, and as liable to give out at any moment as it has been to "make." Coromandel has always been subject to fluctuations. It has had its "ups" and " downs," and, after a period of the latter there would seem to bo reason now to expect that one of the " ups" will bo experienced shortly. The "downs," or periods of depression, arc not without their compensations. For instance, in a " boom" time we frequently find that there are too .;: many flotations, and not enough genuine :. work. At the same time, it is not in the f general interests of tho industry that any goldfield should languish too Jong, for it % only leads to the disheartening of investors, without the aid of whom no development work can be carried on. A good deal of genuine work is in progress at pretent at Coromandel, and there is sound reason for believing that it will result in something substantial. . Having in mind, however,-the* past history of the field— 2 th« . authentic cases of men being raised from comparative poverty to affluence in the firing of a single shot—-there are two ". outstanding facts in connection .with the field. One is that the claims that are being worke/i are not being developed on a largo enough (scale; the other is that there ■ are too many auriferous areas' lying idle ■':' under protection. ■'.■; '■'..■• It will bo the purpose of this series of articles to show that, combined with the fascination of seeking for gold in a dis- ' trict , where fabulously rich shoots have ;been taken out of the ground, there is a genuine mining proposition offered to investors vif they will turn their attention, ant 1 divert some of their capital, to Coromandel. Old miners are firmly convinced that where bonanza patches have been discovered in the past there are more to be \ found. ' The problem that calls for solution is how to work the field properly and cause, it to yield the wealth that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it contains. _ Apathy and want of confidence have held ; the district back, and where there should ibe a flourishing township centre of mining activity— is a sleepy village, '. dragging out a meagre existence, and living on the hope that some day someone may strike a patch, somewhere. Then things -would go ahead.

POVERTY TO AFFLUENCE. ; A glance at the early history of Coro.inandet shows "that in the very first rash, in 1852, when thousands of I diggers were ; : ; ! ; at work as a result of the first discovery of ■■ gold by Mr. Chas. Ring at Driving Creek, in the Kapanga, one of the periodical waves of disappointment- swept over the field. (This discovery.-; was as romantic as ' anything in the history of New Zealand mining. Mr. Ring was a sawmiller, and . one day a log that had come down in a freshet was taken into the mill, with a rich specimen stone from the Old Kapanga, which was wedged into, the extremity of it, where it had been forced against a reef

in its descent of the creek. Thus was gold first discovered in New Zealand.) De- , ■ pression lasted until nine years later, when the Kapanga Company again discovered rich gold in their property, and attracted the first English; capital.. Over £100,000 worth of gold was mined in this property between 1864 and 1869. It .was then thought to be worked out, but subsequent operations proved the opposite to be the, case, and it was afterwards " again remuneratively worked. So with the rest of the field, the characteristic feature of which • has always been that the gold occurs in shoots, or patches, often of phenomenal richness. , This only goes to show that it :. • is not safe to say of a Coromandel mine that it has yielded up its full store. Further work may at any time prove a pro- . perty here to be a veritable bonanza. ; A. • single blow of the pick may, in the future, as has been the case in the past, unearth ;, a, fortune. In other words, an hour's luck is worth 20 years' experience. A fact that may be noted here that in Corpmandel practically all the rich patches have come out of "droppers," or leaders, of small dimensions. This seems to'»have been. :, overlooked by many of the English comjlpanies, who concentrated their attention V upon the big reefs, and in frequent instances left the smaller veins practically unworked. There are hundreds and hundreds of feet of drives, '.and numberless leaders opened up and undeveloped in the old workings of the Coromandel mines, which would probably pay if worked now. ■ Reverting to tho past history of the Kapanga, the property was worked until 1900, up to which time it had yielded eom« £175,000. In 1904 Messrs. Comes and Hollis acquired it, and got rich specimens, some of them being half'gold. In one instance 201b. of selected specimens were valued at £250. Only about a month ago ■ a similar quantity of stone yielded £300 ' worth of gold. Again, take the Tokatea range. Gold was first discovered there in 1870, and during v the next 18 years • the 'Tokatea reef and No. 1 tribute leader there 'yielded gold worth £159,535, shareholders ;' receiving £63,625 in dividends. In 1872 the Green Harp shoot of gold came to wS;|light in tlio Union Beach section of the ', Ha'urati mine. This returned gold valued ,at over £40,000. In ■ 1885 came tho discovery of gold on the Tiki, but it was the ; ; Haiiraki that gave the next real impetus to the field. First worked/ in 1886 the re•:v;: torns from this famous property at the outset were not very large, the quantity of ;'.'| We. being small, but exceedingly rich. In v ■ 1895, however, a boom was started by the ' ' discovery in the Hauraki of bonanza ore by %the. tributer Legge. He' and his party lookout about £18,000 worth of gold in a .' few months, whilst in four years the mine : Produced over £250,000 worth of gold. - ; LOW LEVEL' DEVELOPMENT. Generally speaking, the greater part of • , : the work done at Coromandel so far has ' .insisted merely of surf ace scratching. ■And, genuine though 'they undoubtedly are, the whole trend of -the present operations i 8 confined to the shallow levels. . Very hopeful signs are to bo seen in eeve- ''■; iral -. directions in these » shallow or adit

levels, but there is not the slightest doubt •'% that the future of the field lies in the direc- ,-■' tion of deep . sinking. With the excep- ' -- tion of the Kapanga, in which the shaft is • down 1000 ft (good gold being got at 940 ft), and whore a borehole sunk 225 ft deeper 4v brought up enormously rich quartz, the J deepest working is in the Old Hauraki . shaft, which i« only down 400 ft! In the - jntercst of the field the whole of the claims feU^fe^-JVtr.S-^^r.ivX:;''i>>:;'; --■:!■; ->'""''' >-.:.\"i'.-; ; : ; v .'5-';:' 1 ;■■•:■■;v--:.! ■'■' : ■ j: -'-.':-. .'• i- •-■:'-., :^: : >.>.

embraced in what is known as the Kauri Block, in the lower township, should be either amalgamated or worked under a joint scheme, with the object of reaching to a depth of, 1000 ft. .. To provide the necessary machinery and pumping plant would, of course,:" mean a considerable initial outlay, but,' judging from indications, and the fact that in most of the mines the runs of gold have improved downwards, one would say that there must bo millions of pounds' worth of gold down below to be got for the seeking. The levels already worked in the Kami Block to date have yielded over a million pounds. There are one or two shafts, including the Old Hauraki and Union Beach, which could bo sunk to" the required depth to open up the low levels, and given the necessary enterprise and capital a -workable scheme of development could very quickly bo devised. There should bo a largo and up-to-date pumping plant (tho present Old Hauraki pump would not be equal to draining more than down to about the 600 ft level, arid then it would be fully taxed), and a battery in a convenient place, where lowgrado ore could be profitably crushed. At present tho Old Hauraki plant is draining all the adjoining mines, many of which are, unfortunately, not being worked, but some of which aro thereby gaining an advantage, for which they are not paying anything. It has been proved that there is rich ore in the low levels, and also auriferous country. In such country thero arc always reefs, and where ' there are reefs there is gold. There is a belt of unaurifcrous country between the 500 ft and the 900 ft levels— has been proved by the Kapanga sinking operations— below that all the indications forthcoming from boring are that extremely rich ore would be obtained in reefs unknown on the surface and of quite different courses.