A STARTLING OFFER.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3976, 8 July 1915, Page 6

A STARTLING OFFER.

SCHEELITE WORTH OVER £15,000,u00.

Bv Telegraph—Special Correspondent AUCKLAND, July 5. In Auckland City lives a woman who] if the mineral possessions she lavs claim to were converted into hard cash, would bo rich beyond the dreams of avarice. In a Totter recently sent to the Hospital Ship and War Relief Fund, she made the startling offer of_ a free gift of a deposit of scheolite, an ore yielding tungsten and used in the hardening of steel containing 30,000 tons, now worth £631 per ton. Multiplied out at even £SOO per ton, there is a cool offer of £15,000,000 to lie picked up for the working of the stuff. The'scheelite deposit was discovered in the. Marlborough district several years ago and.it consists of three reefs, over which she holds tho mineral rights. One of tho those she has offered to the Government and -tho 'other two-—one larger and the other smaller—she is reserving for herself. The offer tn tho Government is made conditional upon all moneys received for tho stuff actually worked paid over to the wounded soldiers. A second reef she intends to keep as her exclusive property and the third—well, she might entertain tho idea of partners with a small interest. The Hospital Ship Executive referred the offer to the Government and—alas for the unimaginative stolidity of Governments! the only response sent by the authorities is a formal note of acknowledgment.