DOG'S DISCOVERY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 136, 6 December 1938, Page 13

DOG'S DISCOVERY

A POCKET OF GOLD

REEF OPENED UP

TWO LUCKY PROSPECTORS

(From "The Post's" Representative.)

SYDNEY, November 18.

Nuggets of gold have been accidentally discovered in Australia in numerous strange ways, such an unearthing by a ploughshare and the stubbing of a toe against an outcrop, but Larkinville (Western Australia) has provided probably the queerest example of all. Two prospectors there secured £800 of gold in a day oecause oi the playful habits of their dugs.

Larkinville was the scene of the discovery a few years ago of the Golden Eagle nugget of 11350z, the largest obtained in Western Australia. Three thousand men rushed to the scene following that discovery. Keen-eyed and hungry for gold, they tramped and fossicked daily over the ground for months, but found little other gold. Now Spot, a dog of mixed ancestry, has succeeded where they failed.

When hundreds- of others deserted the field James Eastwood, Jack Hogan, and one other man, stayed on. Eastwood's dog stayed, too, and now has poured wealth into the pockets of his owner and his owner's pal, Hogan. One day Eastwood threw his dog a stick as they walked through the bush. Spot was in playful mood, and, lying down, he worried the stick with goodThumoured growls. As he did so, he disturbed the surface of the ground, and in the morning sunlight Eastwood saw gold. It lay glistening on a little mound of dirt dug up by the dog.

Gouging into the sun-baked soil, Eastwood could find no brothers to the 2oz nugget. But there must be more. He hurried back to the camp, showed Hogan the nugget, and, with pan and pick, the two set out;. They dug into the dry soil and, six inches down, Hogan's pick rang on the cap of a reef. He sank his pick down beside the reef and prised upward. The cap yielded suddenly and there was spilled into the sunlight five small nuggets, and half disturbed from its bed the edge of an 18oz nugget poked through the soil.

That afternoon the two men did a little picking to expose the reef cap, and scraped £800 worth of gold off in the dish.

They considered that one day's work, Next day they dug more deeply, and soon along the edge of the hole was a line of nuggets which had been embedded in the reef, which also showed free gold. By panning off the ■ stone from therreeff f the two prospectors found that it was worth 20oz to the ton.