THE WAIKAKA GOLDFIELDS

Southland Times, Issue 16839, 15 September 1911, Page 7

THE WAIKAKA GOLDFIELDS

A BACKWARD GLANCE. THE ERA OF DREDGING. MODERN DEVELOPMENTS (Specially Written). To write the history of the gold mining Industry of the Walkaka would be to write the history of a most interesting epoch. When the first straggling fosr sickers made their way over the ranges from Waikain and from Lawrence, and spread themselves over the lower fiats and along the upper tributaries of the Walkaka River, very few of them ima-. gined that they had happened on what was destined to become, of the many fields that those same hardy old “fossickers" had discovered, one of the great gold deposits of New Zealand. The surrounding country was all practically held under grazing license, and the squatters did not like the “fossicking” diggers prowling over their runs, and did all that they possibly could to discourage the hardy pick, shovel and tin-dish men from getting a footing in the locality. The hardy men, however, who tramped and roughed it over the wilds of Otago and Southland in the early sixties did not stick at trifles. The Impounding and holding up of horses, the refusal to sell food /and even the right to camp on the runs, made but small difference. The men kept pouring down from the higher lands In the fall of the year, often in such numbers, too, that they took the squatters by storm, and they had perforce to grin and bear what they could not control. The field was A Poor Man’s Pind. The sinking was shallow, the wash good and the returns fair. The flats and terraces for miles around the site where now stands the old mining town of Waikaka, were decorated with white tents and sod wliares, while the diggers worked on with feverish haste to try and win Dame Fortune’s favour. Many made good wages, few ever made fortunes, but gold could be found In almost every gully and on very nearly every terrace. Indeed It has been said that in the Walkaka district the gold grows, like the flowers, on the hill sides. .Tin dish, cradle and later sluice boxes were introduced to deal with the wash material. Great water races were cut alongside the hill sides and around the terraces, and water was brought Into the central workings to deal with the deeper and poorer ground, but these expensive undertakings In numerous instances did not pan out too well for the promoters. Large sums of money were sunk at different times In trying to devise means of working the deeper ground, but the drawback seemed to be that the water was In the wrong place. For hydraulic sluicing plenty of water could be obtained, but the trouble was that the pressure was insufficient and that therefore the ground could not be elevated, and it was only by running the sluice-heads down to a lower level that the wet ground could be worked or the terraces ryn down. After a few years of strenuous work and equally hazardous endeavour the white miners gradually drifted away and their places were soon taken up by • - The Chinese, who came pouring Into the field from many points, prepared to scrape up the white man’s leavings. After the white miners had practically abandoned the field the "Chinks,” as they ever do, with their plodding industry, their economy and their sobriety, worked the ground' over again that the white man had left. That they made money Is certain, and numerous are the reports of Chinese going back to China carrying fortunes of Waikaka gold. The Chinese carry no notes or paper to China-land with them —they take gold—always gold. Of the real, old early day white miners very few now reside In the district, and fewer still have claims here. The Chinese — well, they too have practically all departed or given up the work of labouriously picking, shovelling and sluicing the alluvial wash in the endeavour of earning a living at the work. Yes, the fact is patent. The day of hand labouring and hand treating the varied mass of alluvial material to be.dealt with on any mining field with the object of extracting the gold that the stuff may contain Is past. The Dredging Era. The old days are no more. Man Is merely a unit after all. The day of machinery Is here. When the late Mr Perry and two friends drove Into Walkaka less than 20 years ago the wild waste of shingle and mullock heaps did not offer any more tempting prospect than does the wide valley of the Waikaka to-day. The far-reaching effect, however, of Mr Perry’s visit upon the gold mining Industry of the district was at that time certainly not realised. What Mr Perry saw when he visited the 'abandoned goldfield of Walkaka was sufficient to Induce him later to apply for a dredging claim which took in the whole of the land whereon the Walkaka railway station and buildings now stand. Mr Perry, with characteristic enterprise and energy, set to work at once to erect a dredge to work the abandoned tailings and old workings on the flat. The advent of Mr Perry, the building of such a machine as a dredge to work on dry land and to work alluvial wash with the object of obtaining gold, was such an unheard of undertaking that no end of Interest was taken by the local residents in the work as the building of the dredge progressed. Wiseacres laughed at the Idea, old goldminers pooh-poohed the undertaking as a certain failure, and generally the residents viewed the work In the light of a bubble on the surface of a stream that needed only time to end Its existence for ever. But time-did not succeed in bursting or even affecting the new bubble that had developed, and had come to stay on the flat. The dredge was soon erected and work soon comtnenced In earnest. Dry land dredging became a real live fact. The Boom. Most people down this part must remember the wild fever that took hold of men a year or so after the Walkaka dredging experiment proved to be so successful. The dredging boom raged over New Zealand like a tidal wave, sweeping into the current all sorts and conditions of men and women. Dredging claims were staked out from one end of the colony to the other. Rivers, canyons, gorges, flats, terraces and even bogs were pegged out, applied for and obtained as dredging areas, and the bones of dead-head dredges are.to be seen to-day scattered up and down the interior of New Zealand like the whitened bones on the desert of Sahara. .Waikaka had its dredging boom and the fever took hold of young and old alike, and there was very little land that was in any way remotely imagined to contain gold that was not pegged off as a dredging area. Many dredges that turned out dead frosts were constructed, thousands of pounds were squandered in a year or two on these highly favoured claims, and no returns to shareholders were obtained. The Riches of the Waikaka. Had the field been any other than it really is, Waikaka as a gold-dredging centre would have been dead and buried long ago. But the old “fossickers” who, in the long forgotten past, used to say that Waikaka was the mouth of a golden river wore not far astray. The dredging industry that lias continued now for so many years is the best proof that the great stream that in ages past poured the richest of material into the valley, and which the dredges are and have been dealing with, is no nearer exhaustion now than when the white men abandoned the field 30 years ago. To the intelligent man the working of a dredge on a mining field is an infinitely interesting work. The dredge is able lo inform the man at the buckets so much about the conditions that prevailed in the past. The series of strata that are passed through, the various deposits, the colour and composition of the wash, the shape and form of the gravel, the lay on the substrata are all of more or less interest to tlie man who watches the sluice boxes. In the long hours of the night 100, when the flaring lamps give back to the dredge hand the glints of the rippling waters and when the noise of revolving machinery and the dull rush of Dio wash down the long sluice heads are sounding in his ears, the dredge men are men, and like other men strive to conjure up a picture of the conditions that must have prevailed in the past history of the country when the strange phases of earth’s wonderfully interesting pages were being recorded. How, when and by what wonderful agency did the gold bearing washes become sandwiched between bars of clay, seams of pug, layers of stones and gravel, and possibly all of different colour—rod, blue, white, yellow or slatey, old tree stumps, great logs, strange looking stones and a regular museum of curious natural objects are often to be seen in and about the dredge hands’ camps.

Dry land dredging in this part of the world has taught those who have-become Intimately associated witli the industry very much about the formation of the great valleys and terraces of that undulating and wonderfully interesting barim rnciosrir Py tnc LtoKonuis and the Blue Mountains. ' Deep Dredging. In the early days of hand labour and gro.und sluicing in the Waikaka the largest and richest finds were obtained from comparatively shallow ground. In the higher terraces abutting on to the Waikaka valley gold is to be obtained almost anywhere. By the wear and tear .of frost and rain the material from the terraces is always tending to lower levels, and hence the valley may be compared to a gigantic sluice box that has been sorting out the precious metal from the baser material during countless ages. The early miners worked on this sorted out material in numerous cases with the happiest results, but the terraces were worked and tunnelled and in places sluiced away. Want of water, however, militated a good deal against success, and tlie work was abandoned not because the ground was worked out, but mainly because the conditions for successful work were non-existent. In the Waikaka district the seams and strata of mullock and gravel that are gold bearing are curiously spread over a wide area of surface. The various strata alternate In a most remarkable manner. Along the faces of the terraces abutting on to the Waikaka valley these strata bend and dip at various angles, and run generally on lines th#t cross the watersheds of both the little and big Walkaka streams. As a result of this sectional crossing the streams have worn down the strata vertically to their inclination, and that portion of the strata which runs below tlie old level of the river action is practically in situ, while only the re-deposited material left by the wearing down of the terraces has until recently been touched by either miner or dredge. This is one of the important facts that dredging experts, who are interested in mining in the district, have come to recognise. The important point is jhat the present small dredges have been doing fairly well, but experience has shown that the present dredges with one exception, are unable to dredge down deep enough to get at these original seams ;and the deep levels. It is not so much, then, the gold that is contained in the first 20 or 30 feet of wash below the surface that Is the desideratum, but that which has been proved to be contained in the deper ground. It Is the problem- of getting at the material In these deep levels, then, that dredge building experts have been called upon to deal with. The Giant Dredge. That they have successfully solved the problem of how to work the deep ground In the Walkaka dredging) district has been amply proved. One giant dredge has already been constructed, and now the “Waikaka United Gold Dredging Company” have decided to erect a giant gold dredge also to deal with the deeper ground on their claim. As many of our readers may feel Interested to learn of the vast strides that have been made In tlie manufacture and construction of ’ gold dredging machinery, we make no apology for giving our readers a few Interesting particulars of the monster dredge pontoons that were launched on the Waikaka United’s claim on the 29th of last month. The contractor for the erection of the dredge and the fitting up of the machinery is Mr Knewstubb of Port Chalmers, and it is to that gentleman that we are Indebted for the particulars given below. The dredge that Is being erected is not altogether a new one, having been working on the River before being acquired by the Waikaka United Company, but when finished with the alterations and additions proposed, the company will practically have a new dredge of great strength and of unusual proportions. The length of the dredge over all will be 120 feet with a depth of 7 feet and a width of 30 feet and the well-hole 6 feet. The material for the pontoons Is blue gum and kauri. The huge sfze of the dredge, and the enormous weight the superstructure will have to carry have necessitated the use of first class material. The ladder to carry the buckets is composed of steel and iron and Is 90 feet long and weighs, Without buckets or rollers, something like 80 tons, but if we add on the steel rollers and buckets and bottom tumbler we find that the approximate weight of the ladder when hung and ready to begin work will tot up to close on 160 tons. There are some 50 buckets each weighing about 10 cwt. and having a cubic capacity of about 7 feet. With each revolution of the bucket chain when the dredge is working normal it is possible to elevate something like 350 feet (cubic) of material. This large quantity of material Is flushed into the 98 feet sluice box by means of a 12-lnch pump whence it is poured down over ripples and perforated iron gratings and the waste matter is tumbled out on to, the tailings, the gold being saved In the boxes and on the mats. The boiler is large and in every way suitable to develop the necessary steam to drive the 25 h.p. engine (Marshall) which Is to operate the machinery. When the dredge Is finished It is confidently believed that she will easily work down to 50 feet, and even deeper If needed. Mr Knewstubb hopes to have the complete dredge off his hands by the end of the year, and It Is quite on the cards that she may be working before the new year. The company. In undertaking to add this great monster dredge to their present fleet, have shown commendable enterprise, and it is to be hoped that they will be amply rewarded by reaping a rich harvest. The fact that the deeper levels can be worked by' means of dredges, and that the ground is capable of being worked at a profit means a big thing Indeed to the whole of Southland. It will mean that much of the worked out land on many of our alluvial goldfields will be turned over again by means of great monster dredges, of which the above Is a type. will mean that the life of dredging In New Zealand will be drawn out and prolonged for many years. In fact it may mean, as some assert, that dredging has really only begun, but in any case It will mean much for Waikaka and Its mining interests.