FORTUNE IN GOLD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22939, 18 January 1938, Page 6

FORTUNE IN GOLD

PROSPECTOR'S HICK £II,OOO IN TWO MONTHS OLD AFRICAN DIGGINGS • [from ocb own correspondent] DURBAN, Dec. 20 News -of a 60-year-old prospector who has won a fortune from a barren and almost inaccessible mountain side in Swaziland has just been received in Durban. The prospector is Mr. A. M. Burnett, and within the last two months he has banked about £IB,OO0 — and he is still digging gold out of the dirt.. . Mr. Burnett stumbled across Devil's Reef, an old shaft running into a mountain-side in the Pigg's Peak district, which gets its name from a village where £1,000,000 worth of gold was won' nearly 20 years ago. Devil's Reef yielded about £50,000 before the rich pocket was lost many years ago. Mr. Burnett found the shaft, which is about 30ft. long and 6ft. high, and decided to try his luck. He found signs of gold on the sides and in the floor, bat nothing in payable quantities. Then he.tried the roof. That was the start of his fortune, for he discovered the long-lost pocket of gold. Leaving the shaft, he started another about 30 feet highor and began to dig out gold-bearing earth. The earth is carried down the moun-tain-side-in paraffin tins to a stream a quarter of a mile below, where natives sit washing the earth in the primitive way used for generations.

( Mr. Burnett employs 10 natives. Their task is easy; round a pool they work with prospectors' pans containing mercury, washing away the earth and leaving the gold amalgam. The pocket cannot go on for ever. And when it ends there will be the pool to drain, which should provide a rich haul, as probably half the gold found gets washed away into the pool. A striking fact about the natives working for Mr. Burnett is their apparent unconcern about the entire business; they might be mixing concrete for all the interest they show.