MUCH GOLD TO BE DREDGED IN PAPUA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19271, 7 January 1931, Page 7

MUCH GOLD TO BE DREDGED IN PAPUA.

’PLANES WILL CARRY MACHINERY INLAND. (United Frees Assn.—By Telegraph.—Copyright.) SYDNEY, January 6. According to a well-known mining engineer who is now in Sydney, there is £10,000,000 worth of gold awaiting recovery at the Edie Creek and Bulolo Goldfields in the Mandated Territory in New Guinea. Rich fortunes have been made there in the past ten years by Australian prospectors, but the era of the big company is now dawning. The first of two big bucket dredges for this field has been built at Balmain, Sydney, and is about to be transported to the goldfields. It will consist of 2500 tons of dredging machinery, which will be taken in sections over the precipitous mountains in two great triple-engined Junker monoplanes. One part weighs 69001 b, making a stiff test for the aeroplane. It is expected that a 2000 horse-power hydro-electric plant will be in operation on the Bulolo field in October. Aeroplanes form the only practicable means of transport to the New Guinea goldfields. To get to them on foot means a journey of several weeks through tropical jungle, infested with mosquitoes and inhabited by natives who are not yet civilised. In addition, a high mountain chain has to be crossed. A regular air service between the goldfields and the coast has been carried on for some years, and all the gold is brought out by seaplane, for rivers are used for landing purposes. A New Zealander, Mr Ivan Patterson, of Oamaru, has been managing one of the claims for two or three years. The aeroplanes which are to carry the dredges to the claims are similar in appearance to Kingsford-Smith’s Southern Cross, but are much larger than that machine. They have been specially purchased to carry out the task.