SEARCH FOR GOLD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21221, 29 June 1932, Page 8

SEARCH FOR GOLD.

NEED OF ORGANISATION.

PROSPECTORS WANT HELP.

CEOLOGICAL ADVICE WELCOMED.

Tho views of Auckland business men, published in the HerAld recently, regarding tho encouragement of mining enterprise, have aroused considerable interest in the Coromandel district. In tho area between Mahakirau and Colville some 55 men are out prospecting under the scheme providing assistance to unemployed men of prospecting experience. Most of them are emphatic that more organised effort is needed on New Zealand's goldfields. One suggestion made by a business man was that an expert geological staff should be engaged to investigate the reef areas of the Hauraki Peninsula. This is most cordially endorsed by prospectors. It was pointed out by experienced mining men that past geological surveys required bringing up to date in view of the knowledge gained by actual work since 1907, when tho report by Messrs. Fraser and Adams was issued by tho Mines Department.

"We want a really first-class geologist capable of bringing that report thoroughly np to date," said one mining authority. "A vast amount of knowledge has been gained since it was written, and in other parts of the world modern mining practice has made colossal strides. The cyanide process was then regarded as the latest thing in mining, whereas it is now looked upon as too costly where the immense oil-flotation processes have been established and perfected. Ores that then could not be considered are now good, sound payable propositions, with many years of work ahead for very large plants.

"An Inferiority Complex."

"Mining methods in New Zealand have stood still for many years, while they have gone ahead so fast in other countries that it is high time we realised our wonderful potential wealth. We have every bit as good a field for steady industry on a. very great scale as they have in other countries where millions of capital is invested and is returning profit. We seem to suffer from an inferiority complex in our mining industry.". The supervisor in charge of the Coromandel men working under the subsidy system, Mr. F. Shepherd, stated that threo promising reefs had recently been discovered by different parties. The reefs showed excellent prospects, but they were in places where expenditure of capital would be required before they could be developed. The men operated in pairs and their work was periodically inspected. As their prospecting led them to know their areas, some of them were concentrating on prospecting drives and consequently, being underground, they/ were independent of the weather. It was pointed out by Mr. Shepherd that some,, of th 9 unemployed who were on road work complained that the miners were getting full time, whereas road work only provided for three days a week. The mining, men, however, were working for 40 hours a week and getting a subsidy, for married, men, of 30s a week, while the road men got 37s 6d for their three days.

Need of Explosives,

Certainly the prospectors had an incentive, that incentive which had lured prospectors always, but on the other hand they had exceedingly rough travelling in all weathers and were out in wild country. Only men used to such country, to hard conditions and to "roughing it" could stand up to the work. "We are used to the work and know what we are about," one veteran prospector said. "The result of a thorough search of the country by experienced men would be very valuable if all we see and find out in each gully or reef system was collected, written down and then examined and investigated by first-class geologists. But what is the use of expecting men in reef country to do anything of great value when we have no explosives't We need gelignite, detonators, fuse and candles and we cannot buy those and also keep our homes and families on 50s a week. We tunnel into a hill or into the side of a gorge and within a few feet come on hard country. The prospects may look good, but that is the end of it; without gelignite we can go no further. It is like asking a party of bushmen to chop down kauri trees with pocket knives." One suggestion that was not put forward by the business men, but that might well be considered by them, another prospector said, was the formation of a Prospecting Assistants' Association in the city. Such k an association, if well organised and alive "to the possibilities, might visit the goldfields, meet the prospectors, take interest in their work and subsidise them to the extent of explosives, at least. It would prove of great value in the reorganisation end development of the industry.

ACTIVITY IN AUSTRALIA.

SHIPMENTS FROM DOMINION

"With the present high prices ruling for gold, gold mining has become increasingly popular in Australia," said Mr. Colin J'Vaser, of .Melbourne, who passed through Auckland by the Aorangi on his way to attend the ,Ottawa Conference as representative of Australian mining interests. "Comparatively speaking, 1 suppose Kalgoorlie is the most prosperous town in Australia to-day," he added. Mr. Frascr mentioned that large quantities of gold from New Zealand, both mined gold arid old gold from jewellery, ■were being shipped to Australia. When !he was passing through Sydney last week he was informed that there had just arrived a single consignment of 3000oz. of rid gold from jewellery, shipped from jS'ew Zealand.

There was nothing exceptionally significant in the announcement cabled recently that gold had been found in Melbourne. The city was actually built on the site of an old alluvial goldfield and frequently when telegraph poles were being removed or street excavations made, traces of gold were discovered. However, these discoveries were not important.