GOLD IN NEW CALEDONIA.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 111, 21 April 1871, Page 3

GOLD IN NEW CALEDONIA.

It has long been believed that payable gold would be found in New Caledonia, and the discovery of small quantities of the precious metal has from time to time been reported. It would seem from the following paragraph from the ' Hobarfc Town Mercury,' that the anticipations of former prospectors have at last been realised, and a valuable goldfield. discovered in the island :

" Mr. Felingham, of Spring Bav, who arrived lately by the s.s. City of Hobart, from Sydney, informs us that while in Sydney he met with a miner named Piper, who informed him that he had recently arrived there from New Caledonia, where he had discovered a rich goldfield, both alluvial and quartz ; and that as a reward for the discovery, the French Government had presented him with £2OOO, and made him a grant of sixty-two acres of land. Our informant states that Mr. Piper had in his possession about half a peck of alluvial gold, more or less pure, and that he brought with him from New Caledonia to Sydney two tons eleven hundredweight of quartz and rotten slate, which on being crushed yielded fiftvfour ounces of gold. Mr. Piper had, in company with some Sydney capitalists, purchased the necessary' crushing machinery at the factory of Mr. Stephen,. Pitt-street, Sydney, and was about to return with it to New Caledonia, A schooner had also been chartered to take a number of experienced miners to the new goldfield. Mr: Felingham had a small nugget of the alluvial gold with him, which weighs four pennyweights, and appears of average quality Mr. Piper is stated to have had conniderable experience at California, at (xympie, m New South Wales, and other goldfields, and he represents the newly-discovered field as the richest he has ever seen."