KAWARAU GOLD.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 December 1924, Page 3

KAWARAU GOLD.

UP-TO-DATE METHODS. WELLINGTON, December 11. Mr James Guyton, at one time well known in the Otago mining districts, has arrived here from Siam and the Federated Malay States, where he has been engaged in mining for five years. There is a probability of his taking charge of tlie work's in connexion with the Yogel’s Yision Company, which has eleven claims on the river. Mr Guyton is a large •shareholder in the company. 'The general idea seems to he that the gold-mining under the new scheme will be done in the old style by the pick and shovel. ‘There will be nothing like that if 1 know anything about Imw the river will lie worked,” stated Mr Guyton to an interviewer to-day. “It would take years to do anything at all. and then most of the gold would he left in the river.” Asked what he proposed to do. Mr Guyton stated lie expected to make use of the gravel pump system. This had been tried in New Zealand and had not proved altogether a. success, hut it has now been improved, ami is working with the utmost success in the least. The scheme, he added, was that of breaking the river bed, and hanks with water pressure, and collecting the material by the gravel pump, the latter taking anything up to rocks six inches in diameter. The channel of the Karan, in ages of the past, had been the lied of a glacier, and was covered l*y a cement-like surface under which the gold lay as well as in the many crevices in the river bottom. When dredges that had been in the river had I iroken through this surface, they had made great hauls. Tt was hoped that these would he repeated and greatly improved upon. The sluicing pump used to break up the bed and banks would be driven by steam, the water being drawn from sandbag dams constructed in the river. Sandbags would also he used to divert any small amount of water there was from the scone of operations to another portion of the bed, or, if necessary, Humes would be built over the portion being worked, so that there would be no water to hamper operations. The sluicing pump would also clear out the crevices and pockets, and the whole would be washed down to the gravel pump, which would he also worked by steam, and would take all the loose stuir up. carrying it to a height of 70 feet, where it would lie put through the speciallyeonstmeted sluice-boxes.

Mr Guyton said that the want of some such system hail been the cause of a large amount of gold being left in the rivers in the south, lie thought that it would yet he used with profit on the Miilyncux river. A great deal of power could lie got with tlie sluice pump, and it would cut through anything, even a glacier bed, and clear out a eorvice or hole in a very short time, leaving nothing softer than solid rock. “There has been a very considerable improvement in mining macliincry." he stated. “11l till- East there are huge dredges on the tin-bearing rivers. Most, if not all. of them are American machines. The dredges there cost anything up to £l2-5,0(111. and it would amaze you tn see the way money is squandered. If they get an idea it goes, no matter what the cost. Nothing like the machinery has ever been seen in New Zealand or in Australia.”

Mr Guyton gave it as his opinion that the working-out of the Kawarau river would take several winters. Most of it should be out in. sav, four years or five. Knowing the river and its history, he was inclined to think that there would be many millions of pounds’ worth of gold taken out by up-to-date methods, but- it would never be secured within u satisfactory time by the old pick and shovel method.