REMARKABLE DISCOVERY AT THE INANGAHUA.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 834, 8 July 1871, Page 2

REMARKABLE DISCOVERY AT THE INANGAHUA.

Our Reoften correspondent writes on the Ist instant:— Some two years ago Shields, the prospector of the reef bearing his name, and another miaer, a Frenchman, found some rich (specimens of quartz in a gully, a little to the north of what is now designated as Kelly's line of reef, but, as reefing was not then, as it now is, the sole dream of the miner, Shields did not trouble himself further with the matter, beyond bearing the locality in mind for a future trial. Since, however, a purchaser would now have to pay not less than a thousand pounds for a full share in Shield's prospecting claim, Shields thought that the scene of his former discovery might produce something as good as what had been brought to light, and accordingly he, with eleven others, applied at the last sittings of the Warden's Court at Reefton, for a frontage claim, which, of course, was granted. In a day or two after obtaining the grant, a small leader, with gold visible in the stone, was found, and it was determined by the party to follow this in, in expectation of striking the main reef, which was accordingly done. Near to the spot where the party camped, and within a few yards of the claim, the rock rises nearly perpendicular to a height of about a hundred feet, but being covered with moss, the growth of centuries, gave to the casual observer no indication of what lay beneath the surface. One of the party, however, named Reilly, being of an inquisitive turn of mind, commenced on last Thursday, to scrape away the moss from the rock, when to his astonishment he beheld nothing but solid quartz. Running back to the party, and informing them of what he had found, was the work of a minute, when they coming there, and following Reply's example of laying bare the stone, found what they had before taken to be a huge wall of granite rock, to be nothing but one complete face of a quartz reef; the reef was soon traced to a height of sixty feet, by a length of more than three hundred feet, where it enters the hill side. Several pieces of stone were knocked off, everyone of which contained gold visible to the naked eye; and the fortunate discoverers at once scattered themselves to hunt up old mates, and, as the saying is, " lay them on." Perhaps, in the varied incidents of quartz mining, no parallel can be found to the singularity of this incident, and it must now convince even the most unbelieving that the Inangahua is destined soon to be acknowledged as one of the richest mining districts on the face of the globe.