PROSPECTING UP-TODATE.

Hokitika Guardian, 21 September 1927, Page 1

PROSPECTING UP-TO-DATE.

boring eliminated. LONDON, Aug. 8. Mr Baldwin, during liis visit to Canada seems determined to show that his Government is not the effete thing its political enemies would have us believe, for he made mention of a new development which must necessarily interest new countries more than old countries since it is a means of prospecting for minerals. The specific reference which Mr Baldwin made regarded methods which, lie said, were revolutionising mineral prospecting. He went on to say that the British Cabinet Committee on civil research had a body of scientists experimenting in the detection of minerals below the earth’s surface “without the painful ueeessitty of digging and boring a hole.”

Various tests have been made in recent years. They are electrical or magnetic, or depend, in some cases, on the specific gravity of the deposits, and have been employed in the search for oil, iron ore, water and certain heavy minerals. Their use in the discovery of coal has not yet been tested. One method is that by which a delicately adjusted torsion wire balance responds to the gravitational “pull” of the mineral deposit. A torsion balance, it should be added, is an instrument measuring minute forces by the torsion (twisting) of a fine wire to which they are applied. The specific gravity methods hate heon employed in Great Britain hy Captain H. Shaw, and Mr Lancaster Jones, of the Geological Survey Department and tests are at present being carried out by the department in Staffordshire.