THE DREDGING BOOM. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2373, 24 August 1899, Page 22

THE DREDGING BOOM. TO THE EDITOR.

Sra, — "A Dredgemaster," ia taking exception to my statements ro bank claims on the Molyneux, cays, " I have an intimate knowledge o'l the banks between \Aiexandra and Clyde, an*} I iinhesitatiiigly give my opinon that they will ail give good returns." " Dredgemaster " has certainly a right to his opinion, but when he gives public expression to that opinion he should advance reasons in its suppoifc. This he fails to do, if I may except his effort to show that the Golden Beach property is a 'bank claim, which, as a matter of fact, it is. But how veiy different is this property to the score of bank claims now being foisted on the shoulders of the investing public. The Golden Beach property is made up of a comparatively light deposit varying in depth from 25ft to 35ft, some 30ft of which is being sluiced away in order to render the ground dred^oable by the machinery in use at present. Prior to the property being put on the market, the owners had thorovighly prospected the ground by a system of hydraulic sluicing, by which system the bona fide nature of tho venture was established. But how many of tha present-day bank claims, with their 60ft and 90ft of coarse deposit, have been prospected? Few indeed, and, unfortunately, those few have revealed the fact that tha alternating seams of wash which are usually mot with along the river frontage, do not extsnd back any very great distance into the flats. I know of one or two instances where , shafts, sunk upon a x'ropoity already owned by a public company, have failed to tap one single seam of payable wash within a depth of about 50ft from tho surface. " Dredgemaster," if, as hs states, he is acquainted witlj the flats between Clyde and Alexandra, will probably be acquainted with tho foregoing fact also. Again, there is a party at Clyde prospecting a terrace adjacent to tho river at that neighbourhood, and though the shaft has, I learn, reached a depth of 90ft, not a single trace of gold has been found. The shaft is distant soino fire chains from tho present course of the Molyneux, the fi outage to which shows existing seams of gold-bearing wash. Tho shaft proves the nonexistence of those seams at 'a small distance within the flat. Prospecting operations will nsf-uredly show a similar state of things in the bank claims all along the Dunstan and Earnscleugh flats. Regarding " Dredgemaster's " statement that " sluicing has proved many of those bank claims to bo rich in gold," I can only add that sluicing has proved the eptire upper portion of the deposit to bo not worth the labour expended on operations of the kind. The banks are governed by the largest and most efficient supply of water on tho Otago goldfields, and yet men who could, and did, utilise as much as eight heads daily, had perforce to abandon operations. Let me again warn the public against investing in any bank claim on tho rivor, however losy the prospectus bo that would beguile them. Tho entire lot are suspicious, very suspicious. — I am, cto., August 12. Dredger.