QUEST FOR GOLD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21225, 4 July 1932, Page 5

QUEST FOR GOLD.

ACTIVITY IN WESTLAND.

SEARCH IN MANY AREAS.

DREDGING AND SLUICING

[by telegraph.—own correspondent. ] GREYMOUTH, Sunday.

In the whole region between the Reefton railway lino and the main range the quest for gold is keener to-day than for over a quarter of a century. The latest find is in the Victoria Range, eight miles north-west of Reeftori, where Mr. C. W. Adams, of Wanganui, states that he has located a reef. Mr. Adams said the lodo is in two sections, the total length being 60 chains, the width varying from 3ft. to 17ft.

At Waiuta, south-east of Reefton, the Blackwater mine is employing a large number of men. Another venture is the New Big River Mine, 27 miles south-east of Reefton, which is being restarted. Ifc was formerly a good producer of gold. Yet another new mine is that of Messrs. Absalom and Harris, at Hnkawai, at the mouth of Quartz Creel:, near Blackwater.

Several sluicing claims in course of development in the Reefton district include the Mount Dav d mine, on which a .considerable sum has already, been spent. Water is now bjing brought in. Another claim is, th© Snow River mine. On the other side of Reefton, at Three Channel Flat, Buller River, a Christchurch syndicate is working an area of 300 acres. Further south of the Paparoa Range the old Croesns quartz mine reef has been rediscovered and work may be resumed.

Near Murchison the Matakitaki River is to be dredged. Dredges and hydraulic sluicing are to be used at Barrytown, on the seaward side of Pa.paroa. At the Nelson Creek district, between Reefton and Greymouth, a dredgj will soon commence on one side of the Nelson Creek, and a large sluicing venture on the other iside. Lately a bore was put down at the .Addinstown Creek, Mawheraiti, below Reefton. There are 20 men working near Kokiri, on the old Maori Gully diggings, and more near the old Qineganville field., Men also are working at Kuma,ra and Stafford and the Rimu fields, and in the far south of Westland, where two dredging propositions, Okarito and Gillespie's Beach, have given rase to a revival of prospecting. Another scene <f new alluvial activity is the old Moonlight field, between Blackball and Reefton. There is also boriug for dredging at Blackball Creek.