SEARCH FOR GOLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22505, 25 February 1935, Page 18

SEARCH FOR GOLD

SCOTTISH BORDER AREA The Borders of Scotland may be the centre of a gold rush shortly. Strong traces of alluvial gold have been prospected in the moors round Galashiels and Melrose, and a company has been formed in Edinburgh to carry complete survey of the area. It is hoped that the lode will be discovered in the Yarrow Valley, where already nuggets of gold have been panned out of the river. One man has found, and had assayed, gold worth' more than £2OO in the last three years. The South of Scotland has been known for - centuries to'contain gold deposits. More than 600 years ago a German surveyed the whole of the -Borders area from West to East, and stated that the lode ran from Leadhills in the West to the North Sea coast in the East. For two centuries all the gold for the Scottish kings was mined in the Leadhills district by scouring the hillsides with artificially made ditches—a system invented by monks who settled in Leadhills after the Roman occupation. Recent discoveries of pure gold, which experts have declared to be fragments of the lode, have been found both at Leadhills and in the Yarrow Valley. Residents in Leadhills say they are convinced that the, area borders on the goldfield. Many of the men, lead miners by trade, spend their spare time " panning off " in the hill streams and beating the gold they find into wedding rings.