REMARKABLE DREDGING POSSIBILITIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2634, 7 September 1904, Page 46

REMARKABLE DREDGING POSSIBILITIES.

(From Otjb Own Correspondent.) LONDON, July 16. Mr T O. Dennison, of Oamaru, who, it will be remembered, is one of the Government survey staff engaged in survey work in West Africa, has just returned to England for his annual three months furlough. He called on me a day or two ago, looking very well and "fit," in spite of the nine months' sojourn m what used to be called "The White Man's Graveyard, whence he has so lately come. " Oh, yes, lam very well ; m excellent health," said Mr Dennison, on my remarking upon his satisfactory appearance. 'I have got through my term once more without any illness whatever. The fact is, very much depends on the way a man lives whether he can stand the climate or not. If he takes proper care and lives prudently, there is no reason in the ordinary way why he should not come off all right, as I have done each time '" I suppose the heat is excessive. This present spell of hot weather will seem nothing to you after scorching in West Africa? "Ah. but it is not a case of scorching out there," said Mr Dennison; "it is not the direct sunshine that is so trying. We could put tip with that. It is the excessive humidity of the air — the intensely moist heat in those swamps that tries an Englishman. The insects, too, are very troublesome." Mosquitoe 5 -, I suppose T "No, not entirely,'' answered Mr Dennison. " Thry are bad sometimes, and the kind that propagate malarial fever is, of course, very mischievous ; but that sort has not been plentiful of late. Beside, they operate mostly ait night, and with mosquito nets and due care one can keep them out pretty well. But there is a specm f>f tiny sandfly, so minute as to be almost microscopic, which is a veritable terror It works by night as well as by day, and cannot be kept out by mosquito curtains for no net has a mesh small enough to pre vent these pests penetrating. And iho-i

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bite is very severe. It is extremely sharp at the moment, and is so poisonous that it raises a lump far larger and more irritating than that produced ny any mosquito bite. These little brutes fly .m perfect clouds, and wo cannot keep them off. There is nothing to do but to make the best of it." How about your food out there* "That is a weak point, undoubtedly, answered Mr Dennison. "We can g*r no meat except tinned, and often that goes bad at once through the moist heat. Beside, there seems no real nourishment in it. One might just as well drink a lot of water. Indeed, I once did a 30-mile walk out there on nothing but water. However, I generally tried to get hold of native _ood, chiefly a yam, which is something like bne New Zealand kumera, but of different shape, slightly sweetish in taste, and full of sound sustenance. That food keeps up your strength, and is fairly satisfying, which the tinned meats axe not." What are the prospects of the country! "In one respect somewhat remarkable, I think," answered Mr Dennison. "Gold dredging out there ought to prove a very bg thing, a most profitable industry and investment. Several small dredges have been put to work, and the results fo far have been positively astonishing. I keep within the mark when I say that they <?et as many pennyweights of gold p°c load as New Zealand gets grains— a yieid more than twenty-fold larger. I have known some dredging go 16 or 17dwt 7er Joau. In New Zealand this would be regarded as a hugo thing." Has much been done as yet? "Well," said Mr Dennison, 'for ». luig time past there has been working of a sort, but all done by native women for their chiefs. Whenever a ohijf wants a little money he sends some womon down to wash a small quantity or the sand at tbo edge of a river, and in a very short tima they get gold enough for his whii'-s. This, too, is merely at the rivers' ed?e3? nobody knows what 'wealth may lie — probably doe 3 lie — i n the river-beds thems^lv^. However I have secured some conce33'ons, arid we shall see what comes of it. I ehall be here till September, aid will l?t *mi kiiow if anything happens."