CORRESPONDENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 8 December 1931, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE

ASSISTING GOLD MINI NO. (To the Editor) Sir.—l tv as very pleased to see in Saturday’s “Guardian” your leader on the above subject. When you see the unemployed still engaged in grabbing grass from the side ol our streets and getting 9s or 12s 6d per day, it makeryou wonder where we will end, when we are only offering 15s and 30s pei week for men to go out into the bush, cut prospecting tracks, pitch their tents, provide camp equipment and tools, "o "insurance provided, face all kinds oi weather, ford icy streams on foot, and have to pay a packer to d/’liver their food once a week.

Some men will be .satisfied to pottcj about town and draw their 30s pel week, but if they worked for years we wom'd still have to pay the Emergency Tax of 3d in the £ and keep on smiling. The easier got gold uoar the surface has all been worked here, and we have to go after the deep levels or else get back to some ol the. virgin country at thehead waters ol the iotara and Mikonui Rivers.

\ There is a belt of heavily timbered country on the slopes of Mount bnngitoto from Bullock Creek on the west to the Tuke River on the east, a distance of about 7 miles by 2£ miles wide which requires .systematic prospecting. Good returns were obtained by Lawson and Clones thirty years ago in this area, near Cameron Creek but when Coolgardie rush broke out they left. a„ once, not even'taking their oelongn.*.'. The country is very rough and nrcken but if tested 'systematically, either \Y sinking a number of shafts 1 mile apait or a small man-power Keystone Drill, there is every indication that a sluicing proposition capable ol employing hundreds of men could be opened. In the head waters of the Mikonui River, round Farmer’s Creek, 1 I’ivse, Pleak, and up to the Douglas Saddle we have found outcrops quartz whien merit looking for the leader. In tins region, should a flood threaten, one is wise to return through the Gorge as there is no way out during a flood. Percy Morgan of the Geological Survey under Dr Bell with his men were marooned there for three days, glad to lick the fat left m the frying pan. Camped up in the mountains 20 mil s from .Ross is a man's job. We can .find the men if we can get £3 per week for married men and £2 per week for single men. 1 am, etc., JOHN MURDOCH. Ross, Dec. 7th.