AID TO PROSPECTING.

Kumara Times, Issue 2768, 5 August 1885, Page 2

AID TO PROSPECTING.

[By our Special Mining Reporter.] It will be seen by advertisement that the County Council has extended the time for receiving applications for aid for prospecting until the 11th of this month. There can be no two opinions about it that the regulations are framed in a most liberal spirit, and calculated to give every encouragement to persons who have the desire to prospect. There is just this ranch to be said against them - they have not entirely thrown off the absurd Government regulations that would drive every prospector into an unknown region before he got any assistance. The Council’s regulations no doubt give a litt'e encouragement in Class 2 to prospect near old workings, but why not give the 15s a week to a bona fide prospector to prospect anywhere, if he can give a tangible reason for wishing to prospect in any particular place 1 Most assuredly the object in offering assistance is to find more gold ; and it stands to reason that a miner is more likely to find gold in the immediate neighborhood where he has worked than by shifting his tent two or three miles away, where he may have nothing to guide him in his search. Close to where he has worked he has the experience of all the work that has been done, both in the way of work-ing-out ground and in the way of prospecting done by others, to guide him ; whereas, in new ground he has greater disadvantages to contend with. And I hold that an extension of gold workings that will produce a given quantity of gold is far more valuable to a community than the same quantity got on an entirely new rush : because the people are located there, and have the material to go to work, and have not the expense of building new homes, &c. Had it not been for the distanceclause requiring to be conformed to before Government subsidy was allowed, I venture to affirm that the attempt made four years ago would have resulted in tracing an extension of the leads beyond Larrikins, Professor Black, when at Kumara, expressed a very strong opinion that a registry of all prospecting should be kept as a guide to future prospectors, so that labour and capital should not be wasted in doing what had been done before. It must be patent to the dullest comprehension, that supposing gold to exist in a certain district—if you have proved two or three places where it is not, you are so much nearer proving where it is. It used to be the prevailing idea here that any extension beyond Larrikins would be in the direction of No. 1 dam; and, following up that idea, Mr Daniel Ryan and Mr Clapton some years ago made a very determined attempt at solving the question, and proved at least that it did not go in the direction of their shafts; and the Prospecting Association sunk some shafts farther up on the terrace with a like result. And only recently a party of six men sunk shafts further to the right on the flat, with exactly the same result. All this prospecting, coupled with the experience of working the ground at Larrikins, has led a great number to believe that, instead of continuing towards the dam, the lead takes the direction of the saw-mill. There can be no doubt about it that the same formation extends in that direction and in no other, judging from the prospecting that has been done. There is also the fact that, about five years ago, a shaft was sunk somewhere near the present road, and in what is now Mr M‘Glone’s paddock; and, at the depth of about 90ft., a very heavy wash was found, carrying a coarse sample of gold; but the ground was too deep for three men, and, other attractions offering at the time, it was left. The party consisted of Old Mick, Andrew Ciacher, and Peter Smith; and I really do not know of anything so promising in the way of prospecting in the whole district as this same ground : and 1 would laokle it to-morrow, if circumsianci-s allowed. Again, I would say to the Council, why uot give the fifteen shillings a.

week for any class of prospecting ? As it would secure a man from getting much in debt who really wanted to prospect; and it is hardly enough even to encourage a loafer to try it, for the sake of the money alone.