NEW GOLDFIELDS

Southland Times, Issue 23393, 28 December 1937, Page 4

NEW GOLDFIELDS

CENTRAL AUSTRALIAN DISCOVERY PROSPECTOR MAKES £lOOO IN FOUR DAYS SYDNEY, December 10. In a small canvas bag, Harry Smith, a German, brought to Tennant Creek, the Central Australian gold-mining township, 120 ounces of alluvial gold from the new field 45 miles north-west of the town. It was worth a little more than £lOOO, and represented less than four days’ work by Smith and his 14-year-old daughter. Lumps of gold, including one of nine ounces, so weather-stained and brown that they might be kicked aside as worthless stones, were passed round from hand to hand in the township. Harry Smith, a solid type of German prospector, who has been several years in the territory, did not taste any great success until he came on a nugget weighing more than 16 ounces. To obtain his 120 ounces in the following week he shifted a little more than a ton of dirt after heavy rain which filled creeks and enabled him to abandon his dry blower in favour of a washing dish. This field, which has been “specked” over for several months, has officially been styled the Moonlight Rockhole field. It gained its name when a rush occurred in March of "this year aftei news of the first discovery of alluvial gold came to hand. The country for miles around was pegged out, but not many days passed before the majority of the men had left the field. The area in which Smith found rich stone was tramped over dozens of times, but as it was overgrown with spinifex it attracted no attention. PROSPECTOR’S STORY “For weeks I had prayed for rain,” said Smith, “and then on Sunday morning, after the first fall, I specked Hi ounces. This was right on the surface. Then on Monday, with Vera, my daughter, we got between two and three ounces, but I was not satisfied. We shifted about a chain and a half away, where previously we had recovered a few colours of gold. Both of us carried dishes of dirt 200 feet to the creek bed and in the first six dishes each of us averaged 2| ounces a dish. Then we each struck a duffer, but got on to it again. Starting again with the first break of day on Tuesday, we got 53 ounces. Wednesday gave us 25 ounces in the morning, but the heat was so intense, and we had become so sunburnt and sore, that we had to turn it in till the cool of the evening, when we got another 15 ounces.” Smith successfully applied for a 20acre lease before advice was received from the Chief Warden at Darwin that the field had been declared an alluvial field. Under this ruling the most land that can in future be taken up by an individual is a block of 100 feet square. Men are flocking out from Tennant Creek in every available conveyance, and reports of fairly lucky strikes by other fossickers are coming to hand, though none approaches that of Smith. DISCONTENT AMONG MINERS Serious discontent, resulting in warnings that bloodshed was possible! broke out among those who took part in the rush to Moonlight Rockhole. Nearly all the men threatened to hold up operations on the field until the warden and police went to the field to straighten out their disputes. The trouble arose from the failure of the authorities to declare the area an alluvial field until all the proved ground had been taken up as reef, claims. Two 40-acre claims, one .of 20 one of 10, one of six, and one of five were granted. This area, if divided into blocks of the maximum area allowed on a declared alluvial field, would provide ground for nearly 500 men, instead of six, as at present. Those who rushed out determined to peg out claims somewhere, and a vigilance committee appealed that they should be permitted to fossick on reef claims provided they did not approach within 50 feet of the reef, the practice on alluvial fields in Western Australia. The warden and nolice have now gone out to the Moonlight Rockhole field.