GOLD DREDGING.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 2 December 1901, Page 4

GOLD DREDGING.

NORTH BEACH DREDGE.

(To the Editor.)

Sf f <—[ ec by letters in Saturday's ' . ~' : r Be-p Hurst, aN»rthß ach aimer un.i Mr b'ache, drudgemaster, both asset that the dredge they are connected with is s*ving all the gold. To such statement I reply. Fudge! Saving all the gold, indeed. Do the pair know what thoy are talking about? But I purpose showing from their own statements that gold is being lost. Mr Hurst declares " that practically all the gold was caught on two feet of the top mats, and I can positively say that practically no gold wis lost from the tables." Mr Fasche says:—"l may state that 90 per cent of our gold is caught on the top mats, and practically nothing reaches the bottom mats." Master and man make the same deduction—for after all 'tis but an opinion-and therefore there is but one contention to reply to. The gold being daalt with is fine gold, a good deal ot it what we used to term flour or float gold The whole of this gold cannot be caught on the first two feet of the top mats. No dredging appliances at present in existence extracts the fine beach gold so well as the boxes of the breachcomber. Nor is this to be wondered at, for the quantity treated is very much leas, the material better distributed, and the gold allowed a better chance to settle upon tie blankets, plush, or coper plate as may be uied. It must, therefore, be taken for granted that for extracting a per centuge of gold the beachcomber s appliances are more perfect than that of any yet up-to-date dredge. Of course the quantity could not be treated, but that is immaterial to the question. It is the percentage of gold extracted I have to deal with. Now the beachcomber s experience is quite contrary to Messrs Fasche and Hurst's. The heavy gold he finds on the first two or three feet of his b >xes and then the fine or float gold is found further down, right to the end of his boxes, gradually getting less towards iho end, but even there fine particles are seen, snowing that even with his slow, methodical, and careful treatment gold is lost The beachcomber reckons that he gets about 70% of his gold on the first two or three feet of his boxes and the remaining 30% from there to the end. Now Messrs Fasche and Hurst declare 'that they save all their gold on the first two or three feet, and this, too, when the wash is not nearly so well dhtributed as with the beachcomber, where the proportion of wator to dirt is not always the same, and where the rush is much greater, and. therefore more, likely to carry over light gold than is the case on a beachcomber's boxes. If the beachcomber with his slow and accuratelyguaged method saves 30 per cent of his gold below three feet, and the dredge tables with their greater quantity, greater rash and less evenness only get go'd on the top three feet, I can come to no other conclusion than that at least 30% of gold is being lost.—•! am, —

An Old Beachcomber.