The Ponangina Reefs.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1573, 4 December 1885, Page 4

The Ponangina Reefs.

THE GOVERNMENT GEOLOGIST'S HEiORT. JIB MACATtiUR'S LETTER. (UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.) Wellington, Thursday. The Government' have received the following telegrams re the Poluuiffina reefs from James Park, of the Geological Department : — Visited the Pohangina on the 29th. The slip has been cleared, and the supposed reef recovered. It turns out to be a small mass of whitish grey limestone, embedded with the rock or the country. It is slightly crystallized, and the prospectors mistook it tor quarto. The men on the ground have not even seen a colour of cold, aud are greatly perplexed at the fabulous results of the assays by jewellers, which are probably based on globules of silver derived from the lead oxide used as the agent m the assay. The rock is the same as at the Riimitaka and the Gorge.

We are indebted to Mr Forbes for permission to publish the following letter received by him yesterday from Mr I). H. Macartlmr, of Feilding :—Feildinjr, December 2nd, 1885. Mr .Forbes, Wanganui. Dear sir, — Yon will bo glad to learn that Mr Bartholomew and I have been completely successful m a test we have made of some of the same stone as that you got gold from the other, day. Wo only have very small crucibles; .nn^ practically a very small quantity of stonq was tested, but the result was -about f.ia!t\ a grain of gold, as nearly as we can estimate, We followed your process, which it is evident is necessary tdl"fcring-tlid finely subdivided gold together. This independent test should prove that those who suspected your skill or bonajides did so wrongly. 1 hope great things from the iield, and whatever the. report of geologists 1 shall not have my faith m it easily shaken. The only thing now is to get a sufficient body of the stone to operate on. — Yours faithfully, D. H. Macarthur.