UNTOLD WEALTH

Waipa Post, Volume 45, Issue 3253, 10 November 1932, Page 2

UNTOLD WEALTH

The high price of gold expressed in sterling has proved a great incentive to gold mining the world over, and New Zealand has got the fever just as badly as in other places. For the seven months of this year to the end of July there was exported from the Dominion 105,703 ounces of gold, as compared with 79,045 ounces in the corresponding seven months of last year, an increase of 26,658 ounces, or ahount 34 per cent. The value of the gold exported this year was £555,379, against £324,16i, an increase of £231,218, or just over 71 per cent. The Unemployment Board has been subsidising prospecting. While the Board cannot be accused of wasting money, it certainly could do a great deal getter with its expenditure. I Prospecting should be concentrated as much as possible on new country and there is much scope in this respect in the West Coast districts around the Sounds. In the summer of 1931 a party of geologists consisting of Professor Benson (Dune*din), Bertrand (Auckland), King (Wellington), and Keble (Melbourne), spent six weeks around about Preserand Chalky Inlets and the West Coast Sounds, bringing with them large quantities of speciments. n returning to Invercargill Professor Keble in the course of an interview said: "From my researches I have come to the conclusion that there is untold wealth in auriferous metals in the Sounds, but to wrest the treasure from Nature work will have to be carried out under scientific methods. The indications and reefs met with are exactly similar to the gold-bearing area of Australia. In no part of New Zealand is there such promise of rich results being obtained as in the vicinity of Preservation Inlet." This is inaccessihle country and men should he employed making tracks to open up this unexplored country.