LOCAL AND GENERAL

Otago Witness, Issue 1466, 20 December 1879, Page 19

LOCAL AND GENERAL

Trom time to time (says the Dunstan Times) experiments by dredging have been made, and in fiome instances with a certain amount of success, in obtaining the gold from the bed of the Molynenx ; but in the long-run, through one cause or another, none of the machines used las proved so successful as to warrant the proprietary, wheD any serious mishap has occurred the outlay of any considerable sum to effect repairs, to go to the expense. Hence the result that now there is not one jingle machine at work, and the rich golden drifts in the beds of our rivers— the Molyneux especially — are lying unproductive. The machines that have been used have taken a ■▼•riety of forme, including, spoon dredges, -worked by hand and by Bteam ; currant wheel bucket dredges ; pneumatic tubes, and last, but .not least, a submarine boat. The whole, as we said before, proved inapplicable, and as a matter of course have been discarded. The Times then proceeds to speak of the dredger tn Triew at the Sydney Exhibition »» follows :— "Now, as the question of dredgingthe river-beds one of vital importance, as from that 'source alone can we expect our gold returns to be kept ■up, we shall not be stepping ontside our duty by referring to a dredger, one of the exhibits at •the Sydney Exhibition* and which is attracting great attention at the hanas of the miners who are visiting that show, and who express the opinion that it is the identical thing wanted *o successfully cope with and overcome the 3nany difficulties to be|met with in drudging the Molyneux, and which have rendered pre--»ious iffsrts all but futile.- We hope to obtain in the course of a few days drawings and other particulars of the .machine, the' Which we shall se pleased to lay before any parties interested.