TALKS ON THE TRAIN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19692, 20 January 1926, Page 8

TALKS ON THE TRAIN.

Bv A. W. TrsDAix. The four men whose- talk was reported sort s tune ago met again, not by mutual arrangement, but by the decree of fate. Jus; before the north train started Smugson and Jiggletail bounced into a smoking carrige, where sat the Old Timer and Sparrowfield, placidly puffing their post-prandial pipes. ".iuilo!” roared Smageon. “Wot oh! Cheerio!” cackled Jiggletail. “»xood morning,” quietly remarked Spa»rowfield. The Old Timer said nothing. “Just get back from Lawrence last night,' aaic. Smugson. “Whal sort of time hav* you been having?” “Quiet and pleasant, wandering about the hills and gullies. We were in Lawrence too. Strange we didn’t see you. My friend and I here came back to town by the morning Crain, 6.2 t), you know,” replied Sparrowfield. “To early for u*. Couldn’t persuade Jig to get up. The Lawrence girls made him play tennis yesterday, and his constitution got a shock, in more ways than one, 1 suspect.” “Oh! shut up, Smug,” said Jiggletail, feebly smiling. “Did you see the Blue- Spur?” “Oh yes! Went by car up Gabriel’s, and back by way of Munro s and Evan’s Flat, ily word! What a pile of staff has been shifted out of that place! They say there used to be a hill where now there’s a hoi* Dig enough to bury half Dunedin, by th* look of it.” The Old Timer looked up, and spoke. “Ay! It’s been a wonderful hill. I mind when there were nine companies on it all ground sluicing in ’6B. Lots of people then said she’d last only 20 years at the rate they wore shifting the stuff. A few gave her 5 years. But that was the maximum. 1868—How long was that ago?” “Fifty-seven years,” answered Smugson. “That’ll tell you. And she’s not done yet. There are two nozzles now pelting water at the boundary block between the Gabriel’s side and the Munro’s side. Getting good gold too. There’s grand water pressure. Jet shoots out like bullets from a rifle, and 57 years ago they thought groundsluicing would work her out. Strikes me my old carcase will be under the sod and pretty rotten long before they’ve cleaned out all Che gold from the old Spur. Heigiiol” sighed the Old Timer. “I was reading the other day,” said Sparrowrield, “Vincent Fyke’s book on th* Early Discoveries of Gold in Otago, published in 18S7. Pyke reckoned at that tim* that the workings at the Blue Spur had yielded one million pounds’ worth of gold. And that’s 38 years ago. According to the aam-5 account the early miners turned water on the hill in 1862, 25 years before 1887. Now, if, by ground sluicing, a million wa* extracted in 25 years, how much was extracted in 33 years by the hydraulic sluicing? Applying the Rule of Three I make it £1,520,000. Add the termer million, and we have a total of £2,520,000 as the value of the precious metal washed out cf that one hill. And we haven’t been counting what has been taken out of the tailings on both sides. Add that, and consider hydra" ticking runs the staff away ever so much faster than ground-sluicing, and you’ll reckon three millions , perhaps four millions, won't bo too high an estimate for the value of Blue Spur's contribution to the wealth of Otago and New Zealand.” “Pity they can't find another hill like it, I wouldn’t mind being a treasure-hunter myself then,” the volatile Jiggletail ven-ture-i to remark. “E’m. Well, there are hills like it, only not so big. Wetherstones and Waitahun* Gully are still keeping the nozzles going. The;' are all on the same_ lead of goldbearing cement. Then ther’s Glonore, the old Woolshed diggings, and Adam’s Flat. The cement’s been traced all the way_ to the coast at Kaitangata. It w-as deposited bv !,n ancient river, they say, which used to nn through the country when there was a gi eat deal more of it sticking out of the sea. The mouth of the old river must bo miles away below the Pacific Ocean. 101 l knovr there’s a little gold been got all along the beaches on the east coast of Otago. Perhaps that gold was washed up by ;he waves out of the gravels of the same ancient river.” The Old Timer had struck his pet topic, and there was no stopping him now ‘To you know?” He spoke with animation. “T believe there’s tons of gold under Wetherstones Flat if you could only get enough water pressure to lift it out. A don't think the cement’s ever been bottomed there yet. But it’s bean proved to contain plen-y cf gold. Talk about treasure-hunt-ing it the Exhibition! Tuapeka is Otago a real golden treasury. _ The goldfields of Tuapeka made Dunedin the first city in New Zealand, and, mark my words, if Dunedin ever goes ahead again, and gets m Ironl of Auckland, Wellington, ana Christchurch, it will be the buried gold of Tuapeka that will put her there. ilnbona of tens of the compressed gravel of that old rivei-bed still lie there. It's a sort or natural concrete with loose, soft layers in it. But it’s all gold-bearing. Of course the soft seams pay best, because so much more ran be washed away in a short time than of Ihe hard cement. But the cement crumbles and loosens after being exposed to tio air, and rain, and frost lor a few veava. So it always pays to turn the nozzle on old tailings. The present Gabrie''s S'uiong Company, they say got their best yields at the start from the failings of Consolidated Company that 'worked there nearly 30 years. You see, exposure to the atmosphere broke up the concreted gravel and sc; free the gold.” 6 “Why don’t they crush it?” ssi-d Smngthey did, vears ago,” replied the Old Tinier “There ’ were several batteries on the Spur before I left it. But the process is too slow and costly. They may nnd out a u- £ v some day though, to work all that 1-ad of cement. And then there'll be a boom in Otago, I can tell you-a proper one If a volcano would only break ou« unde- Wetherstones, and lift the cement there a few hundreds of teet there woud be a new Blue Spur richer than the old one, perhaps.” , . ... ... “What about hign explosives like what they used in the war?’ asked Smugson, whose imagination was fired. “They’d have to buy a mighty lot of them to toss un that mass of material. Everybody would have to leave the district for a dry or two, I reckon, when the explosion took place,” said the Old Timer. “Well, I’m glad I wen*, to Lawrence and saw the old workings,” said Sparrowfield. “And I fancy there’s a lot of gold to be got ;here yet. It only wants faith, enterprise, and capital.” The train whistled. ..... “Here’s Oamaru,” cried Jiggletail. Lets have a cup of tea.