SEARCH FOR GOLD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21316, 18 October 1932, Page 8

SEARCH FOR GOLD

The discovery at Coromandel of a leader rich in gold should still further stimulate prospecting. The value of this ore body—so far a thin vein—has yet to be ascertained. There are alluring possibilities which may not materialise. Meantime, from the public point of view, one of the most significant features of the find is that it has been made in an area in which fossickers have been at work over a long period of years, that its discovery was "not altogether luck," seeing that the Messrs. Chapman, with a wide experience of mining, worked systematically on the evidences of gold traces in the creek-bed, in pursuit of their theory that the origin of the metal was in the vicinity. Their deductions proved accurate and their prospecting was scientifio in method. Their success is an object lesson for the Mines Department and the Unemployment Board, which is "grub-staking" or subsidising a considerable number of prospectors and miners. It is not suggested that either authority is a party to purely haphazard operations. In the south many areas have been tested to some extent, and some idea of the £old content of the ground has been obtained. But there still must remain great scope for redoubled activities if tho recorded knowledge in the hands of the department is marshalled and the services of experienced prospectors are requisitioned to lead parties. Such expenditure is well worth while. The fact that thousands of miners have walked up the Pukewhai Creek at Coromandel in which the newlydiscovered leader is just under the surface, suggests similar possibilities in many other valleys of these ranges. There should be no hesitation in organising parties to recomb even the most familiar ground. Infinitely more useful would such relief work be than much that is now providing sustenance. The workers would have the incentive of individual reward and the country would benefit through every ounce of gold won. A vigorous gold-seeking policy is indicated.