GOLD

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 7, 10 April 1944, Page 18

GOLD

A KORERO Report

The claim manager was bearded, with a battered hat falling in carefree curves over his greying hair. He must have been nearly seventy, but the fresh glow of his complexion was that of a much .younger man, and the twinkle in his eye told of experience and humour rather than age. Clad in a rough, grey shirt with fraying braces supporting strong twist trousers, he might well have been one of the early diggers who panned for gold in the rush days of the Coast during the latter half of last century. As he stood beside the roaring race with darting fork assisting the boulders that rolled down the muddy torrent it needed little imagination to picture him bending over a pan beside a bush-edged creek, washing the dirt with skill and patience, until in the bottom of his dish appeared the dull flakes of yellow gold that eighty years ago brought thousands of eager adventurers to the wild hills of Westland in search of sudden fortune. With typical West Coast willingness to assist, he led the way down the large pipe-line that brings the water from high in the bush down to the sluicing claim. In a shallow creek beside his hut he panned out a few colours from a dish of dirt, dried it over his fire, and blew it on his copper pan until the gleaming flakes of gold lay nestling against the bottom lip. And then the years that have changed the outward face of estland rolled back and gold yielded itself not to mine or dredge, but to the courage, patience, and skill of the individual digger who sought it with his two hands in the days when the Coast was young. To-day this digger manages a large sluicing claim where modern methods tear the gravel from the hills and send it hurtling down a narrow wooden race

to lose its precious cargo as it goes. But he has seen the Coast in other days, days fast imbedded in the memories of the old-timers, days which live again only when a couple of them meet in the convivial atmosphere of a “ pub ” and retell old stories of sudden riches and sudden deaths, of great difficulties and hardships and the courage that overcame them, of heroism, hospitality, and stout hearts.

Gold was found in Westland in 1864, and within a year thousands of diggershad flocked to the Coast. Communications were negligible in those days. Transport by sea was the usual method, with treacherous river-bars to be negotiated before a digger landed amidst the other innumerable difficulties of an almost virgin country. Food-supplies were irregular, mountain torrents dangerous, and many a man lost money and life in the wild bush country that drops so steeply from the Alps. But hopes were high, and though comparatively few found the dreamt-of El Dorado, many fortunes were made and lost as the adventurers scoured the Coast. Four men collected 1,200 oz. of gold in four months, nearly half the quantity shipped from the Coast in 1864. The next year gold to the value of over a million pounds was exported. 1866 was the record year, when over 500,000 oz. was won from the fields at a value of over

Since then the hopes of the early diggers have been continuously fulfilled, and up to 1938 over 6,500,000 oz. had been won in Westland, valued at almost £26,000,000. One thousand pounds’ worth of gold has been won from Westland fields each and every day of their existence.

Little individual prospecting is done in Westland to-day. Perhaps there are a few rich strikes yet to be discovered, but, as the claim manager put it, a floating population of 60,000 people, all with one end in view, prospected the possible goldfields fairly exhaustively. But by the old manual methods claims were not completely worked out, nor were they followed to any great depth because of numerous difficulties facing the early digger. Modern machinery has enabled the old fields to be reworked more intensively as well as economically, and new methods of treatment still encourage the earth to yield up a payable amount of gold. Although rich strikes are no longer the usual thing, quartzmines, gold-dredges, and large sluices all win gold from places which would not have been accessible to the methods of the early digger, though nearly all these locations were first worked by the pan-handlers of the last century. Sluicing is the oldest of these methods and was used extensively in the early days. Modern improvements have increased its effectiveness, but it retains more of the atmosphere and romance of gold-seeking than the other methods do. This is because its processes are simple and it is conducted outdoors.

Gold-bearing wash exists in the earth’s strata at varying depths. As free gold it is found in a stony gravel from depths of 1 ft. or 2 ft. to over 100 ft. On the flat, bucket dredges can tear out this large gravel. In the hills it is collected by sluicing. At Moonlight Creek gold was found in quantity in the early days ; some large pieces, known as nuggets, weighing up to 79 oz. To-day, where the old workings stood, a huge jet of water tears out the hillside 70 ft. below its surface and washes the earth down into a race, which carries it away. Here in the quiet bush where the old diggers found some tons of gold, a 2 ft. 6 in.

pipe-line descends the hill from a creek 300 ft. above and carries its volume of water two miles into a cliff-face, where it is forced out through a 6 in. nozzle at the rate of 35 cusecs a,minute. A huge arc of water like that of a gigantic fire-hose roars at the base of this 70 ft. cliff, undermining higher portions as it washes out the rocks at the foot. Its projector, called a telescope, is more like a piece of small artillery than a hose. The telescope, which forms the barrel, is based on a swivel at the end of the pipe-line and can also be lowered or raised in elevation. Rough rifling in the barrel concentrates the jet. One man directs its fire, all the time endeavouring to keep a square edge to the cliff face and not allow a curved face to show up. Thus he aims at a clean cut from the cliff rather than a huge oval bite.

Where the 30-yard stream lands, a cloud of yellow dirt, like the burst of artillery fire, rises up. The stream tears at the boulders, loosening them and washing them down over the solid rock that forms the cliff base. In time the overhang created brings down the earth above, so, and by keeping at the base, the whole cliff face ultimately finds its way to the race.

In the old days where water of sufficient pressure was not available to work hard ground, tunnels 40 ft. deep were bored in the cliff base about 6 ft. apart and gelignite placed in the intervening pillars to blast the face down. To-day, as the power of the jet tears out the cliff, it also washes dirt, gravel, boulders, and clay down over the limestone base, to an artificially formed bottle-neck built of large stones, which leads into the race, down which the rubble travels.

A torrent of water washes the dirt along, and just as a fall provides the method of getting the water to the claim at high pressure, so a fall in the race takes water and boulders away. The race is like a large wooden gutter, 2 ft. 7 in. wide and 2 ft. 4 in. deep, running back 200 yards from the claim and distributing the “ tailings ” or rubble out into the valley behind. The water moves fast down the race (as it must do to keep the larger boulders moving),

and if you drop a twig into that yellow roaring torrent it is gone in a flash. Put your hand in and you realize that things are moving. Large stones threatening to block the race are broken by hammer.

As the gold-bearing wash and rubble are washed into the sluice-box the gold, being nineteen times heavier than water, sinks to the box-floor where it is caught in “ ripples.” These ripples are flat, perforated, steel plates, covering the bottom of the box, and set at a slight angle to the floor. The water boils oyer the raised edges of these plates, dropping the concentrates containing the gold. The plates extend some way down the race, but most of the gold is collected in the first few yards of the sluice-box. Below the plates is a carpet of coconut matting, to which the concentrates adhere. In the old days, and still in some claims, wooden blocks instead of iron ripples were used.

The sluice is kept going day and night for a month and then turned off to allow the wash to be collected. Sufficient water is used to build up the wash against a dam in the race after the plates have been lifted. The heavy concentrates

fall to the floor of the box, and the waste sand and gravel is allowed to flow over the top of the dam, which is gradually lowered until only the concentrates remain. These, after a month’s sluicing, may only fill half a bucket, but they are literally almost worth their weight in gold. Mercury is added to them to form an amalgam with the gold, and this is heated in a crucible, driving off the quicksilver which is re-collected in a condenser and leaving the cone of pure gold.

Sometimes the tail-race carrying the rubble down into the valley is blocked with large stones, and the man at the foot of the race signals to his mates at the sluice-head in an ingenious, if primitive, manner. An overhead wire runs up through the bush and is slung over a cross-wire, and attached to a piece of wood below a kerosene-tin. On pulling the wire, the man at the tail race attracts his mates’ attention above the roar of the sluice by the noise of the wood on the tin. If they are away and find the wood pulled over the cross-wire on their return, they know that there is a blockage farther down. A man stationed halfway up the race signals in similar manner.

The race is then blocked some twenty yards below its head and the water overflows the sides until the obstruction is removed.

The pressure of water from the telescope is illustrated by the fact that when the nozzle is elevated a 300 ft. arc is possible. Twenty-three men could be profitably employed in the claim. At present five are working it. Still, over the past eighteen months an average of over 100 oz. a month has been collected. This is fine gold ranging in the scale of purity from 989 to 1,000 fine. Other golds average about 950. This is considered a satisfactory return, as the sluice moves only about 100 yards of spoil an hour.

It’s hard work, but it’s enthralling, especially when the yield is good. Even the claim manager, who has chased gold since 1898 and who refers to those who seek it as “ mugs ” and “ suckers,” would find it difficult to give up the chase even so late in life. There is still a gleam in his eye as, peering and blowing into the bottom of his old copper pan, he spots the dull colours.