SEARCH FOR GOLD

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXX, Issue 8444, 25 March 1933, Page 2

SEARCH FOR GOLD

WAIH) PROSPECTING ASSOCIATION AREAS FOR INVESTIGATION BEACH LOCALITY FAVOURED A meeting of the executive committee of the Waihi Prospecting and Mining Association was held on Thursday evening in the Mayor’s room. Borough Council Chambers, there being present Messrs W. M. Wallnutt (chairman and secretary), H. W. Hopkins, B. A. McLeay and E. A. Wilson. Apologies for unavoidable absence were received from Messrs W. H. Toy, E. Dye and J. B. Beeche. Mr J. L. Gilmour was present by invitation. The chairman reported that he had received a cheque for £250 from Mr B. L. Hammond, treasurer of the “My Lucky Year” Art Union, by the direction of the Minister of Internal Affairs, to be applied towards assisting prospecting for gold in the district. He (the chairman) had put in an application last November for inclusion in the current art union (No. 21). A communication was also read from Mr S. A. Shaw relative to a prospecting claim at Owharoa on the south side of the river, and on the line of the Golden Dawn and Smile of Fortune reef systems.

BBACH-ORAKAWA AREA The chairman further reported that he had been approached in the matter of assisting in the purchase of tools and ammunition by a party of two relief workers who had arranged with the inspector of mines, Mr J. F. Downey, to prospect at the Waihi Beach under the No. 8 unemployment scheme, controlled by the Mines Department officials. A general discussion followed, Mr Gilmour being of the opinion that the Waihi Beach-Orakawa mining area was worthy of investigation. It was subsequently decided to consider applications for assistance from bona fide prospectors, subject to the approval and control of the inspector of mines ,and also to assist in the purchase of tools, etc., for the party about to prospect at the Waihi Beach. In regard to the Owharoa proposal, it was considered that the undertaking, to be effective, would involve an expenditure beyond the means of the association.

GEOLOSISTS’ VIEWS In his report on the Waihi Beach area, the late Mr P. G. Morgan, Director of Geological Survey, stated that there was a probability of ore at depth, and that some enrichment had probably taken place with depth in the Treasure Island lode (Waihi Beach claim). The lode-bearing rhyolites found at the beach, he pointed out, belonged to the same series as the lode-bearing or older andesites at Waihi and the dacites at Owharoa.

Messrs Bell and Fraser (geological survey) also reported that the geology of the locality was distinctly complicated, and that probably the most widespread rocks of the immediate vicinity were rhyolitic breccias, consisting mainly of fine fragmental material. In places, especially in the Orakawa creek, the andesites were locally brecciated, and the oxidation of these altered and highly pyritized andesites had given rise in many places to very rusty outcrops. Alluvial gold in small quantities could be obtained from nearly all the creeks from the Waihi stream northward to Fraser creek, which entered Homunga Bay. In the last-named creek detrital cinnabar was also found. Apparently most of the gold in the creeks north of the Waihi Beach claim was shed from the mineralised breccias. The report also mentioned that it was rather remarkable that the genesis of the Waihi Beach veinstone, which was enclosed in Pliocene rhyolotes, appeared to be closely analogous to that of the older veins of Waihi, Golden Cross and Koinata, enclosed in andesitic rock.