GOLD DREDGING.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 18 July 1901, Page 2

GOLD DREDGING.

Sunken timber is causing a little trouble to Erickson’s Reward dredge. The No Town pontoons were success* fully launched yesterday afternoon. Ahaura dredge is now on the opposite side of the river to where she commenced from. The wash is still shallow—lsft deep. The Grey River dredge broke her spindle last night. The Foundry is effecting repairs, and the dredge is expected to commence again to-day. About 20 to 25ozs is expected .this week. The. contractor for the Caledonian' c pontoon launched same yesterday. The whole of the Company's machinery is at the building site. The pontoons are 93 feet long, 23 feet 9 inches wide and 6. feet 1 deep. The ladder will dredge forty feet, and the capacity of the buckets is four cubic feet. The pontoons are very substantially built and reflect great credit on the builder, Mr Joseph Jay, and the 1 foreman in charge of the works, Mr G, Weaver.

The contractor for the erection of the machinery of the Orwell Creek company’s dredge expects to have his contract completed within four weeks' time.

Mr Pearson, contractor for building the Prince of Wales G.D. Coy’s pontoons expects to have them afloat early next week. The boiler and engine have been forwarded to the building site.

The winch-engine (Marshall) for the; Woodstock Coy s dredge has been forwarded to the' claim. The buckets, gearing, etc which arc being .made An Christchurch, are expected to arrive shortly.

Mr P. Lyders, contractor for building the Victory and Aldings Company’s pontoons, is making good progress with the work. The boiler and engine, together with a considerable amount of the gearing have been forwarded to those Company’s building sites.

Perry’s Reward dredge is getting bottom at 18 feet, which was rather unexpected considering that the prospecting holes about two chains ahead bottomed at 25ft 6in and 27ft 6in respectively. The dredge is at present working through silt and there are only a few inches of wash dirt.' No doubt as the dredge worto* into deeper ground the wash will deepen; The directors of the Beefton United Gold Dredging Company have selected the spot for another bore, and also a site on which to build the pontoons.

The dredgemaster of the Leviatian dredge wired to Dunedin on Saturday morning ;—“ Hard reef rose above water level; had to abandon half thefaoe adjoining boundary. Dredge running splendidly.

Davis’s patent grab hooks have been in use on the Maori Queen dredge fof the last fortnight, and have been found to be far superior to the grab hooks which have hitherto been in general use.