THAMES GOLDFIELDS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 143, 27 October 1868, Page 3

THAMES GOLDFIELDS.

The following is from the Auckland I Herald : — Our attention has been several times called to the fact that notices of claims at the Thames published in the newspapers are often unreliable. Efforts are made to get a paragraph in the paper speaking favourably of aclaim; a few pounds of stone are crushed; the yield of gold i 3 spoken of as so many ounces per ton. Claims are constantly striking rich gold, and they are confidently expected to yield a very large number of ounces to the ton, and great expectations are put down as realities, while the amount of gold obtained from crushings haa, in some instances, it is said, been overstated. Of course such allegations can only refer to some of the claim*, but nevertheless such an impression can only do izreat harm. As an instance of this we may refer to the paragraph respecting the Auckland claim. It is there stated that from a previous trial 9oz to the ton had been realised. As we ourselves have reason to know, the result of a crushing of 4 tons of stone was not 9oz, but about loz to the ton. Now, we have from the first done all we could to further the real interests of the '1 hames goldfield. The insecurity, for want of the leases of the ground, is scarcely a greater evil than the total absence of any reliable data on which to value a share in a claim. In the very same claim two different shareholders in it will difler to the ex ent of several hundred pounds in the estimate they put on their shares. Purchasing in mines of all kinds is notoriously at all times liable to uncertainty as to result ; but that uncertainty at the Thames is as great as can well bt imagined.