DISCOVERERS OF GOLD

Otago Witness, Issue 4028, 26 May 1931, Page 79

DISCOVERERS OF GOLD

A FEW CURIOUS EXPERIENCES.

By

W.F.S.

One often meets a man who, as opportunity offers, produces a bottle containing gold. It may be the result of a bulk sample of material treated through a box or cradle or it may be a small sample as from one or several dishes or from the cubic contents of a bore. There is not much danger in this as, if he wants to make headway, the man with the bottle cannot make any great mystery as to where the gold came from. But beware of the man who produces a quartz specimen and pro fesses to have found a rich reef. He is very mysterious about it—he made the discovery in quite an accidental way.

My first experience of this peculiar form of psychology was with a locomotive engine driver on a ballast train between Hindon and Alullocky Gully. He came to Dunedin one evening with some very rich specimens and left a message for me to see him as soon as possible. I was at his house early next morning when he produced the specimens and informed me they were fair samples from the lode he had discovered. A week later my mate and I .journeyed forth with this’man on his ballast train. Arriving at Mullocky Gully he beckoned me to the engine, and from there pointed out where we would find the reef. I felt at once that we were being deceived, and that proved to be the case. The specimens were given to this peculiar human specimen by a Nentliorn prospector, and the temptation to deceive someone was more than he could withstand.

Some years later a mate of mine was in Queenstown on business connected with mining. After dinner at Eichardt’s Hotel he was approached by a stranger who produced a specimen and asked for an opinion regarding the value of the ore. He said he had had no mining experience, but he had discovered a lode on his run at the head of Lake Wakatipu. My mate asked him if he wished him to go up and see it, but the man with the specimen protested that he had promised Mr Donald Reid, jun., of Dunedin, the first call on anything of the kind he chanced to discover. Aly mate. Air Reid, and several others were just then arranging to put a cyanide plant on the Invincible tailings at the head of Lake Wakatipu, and when he reached Dunedin he told Air Reid the story of the specimen. Air Reid knew the gentleman quite well, said he was a very decent fellow, and arranged with my mate and a Air J. P. Smith, mining engineer, to go at once to the head of the Lake bearing a letter to the gentleman with tile specimen. In due course they arrived at his hbuse and presented Mr Reids letter, and were invited to stay tlie night, and were made verv comfortable. In the morning their host expressed his regrets at having caused his visitors so much trouble and expense and invited them to stay on for a holiday, but, he said, “I must confess now that 1 have no reef and never had one.” When my mate reached Queenstown he found a large specimen in his bag. The man at the head of the lake had decided it was a dangerous weapon in his own possession, and so rid himself of the temptation to deceive others.

A few months ago quite a decentlooking young man approached an officer in one of the Dunedin banks bearing a few small specimens in a bottle which he wanted assayed. He said he broke them from a reef which he had discovered in the mountains. He was recommended to see certain mining men of niv acquaintance and keep the specimens intact. .1 his he did, giving a most tempting description of the lode. He said there was even richer stone yellow with gold, but hi> had not the means with him to break oft large specimens. He was closely questioned regarding the width of the lode, distance exposed, walls visible (if any), water for power, etc. They were all there. He arranged with an engineer for a survey of the land and approached a solicitor to attend the legal business. I had an intel view with him later, and found his enthusiasm waning. His insane imaginings a little later had run their course and he ignominiously disappeared, discredited, and no doubt ashamed of such insane follv.

It is an undoubted fact that a loaded revolver or a squirt pistol with a corrosive liquid are dangerous weapons in the hands of certain irresponsible people. So is a quartz specimen in the possession of others. In each of these attempts to decive the perpetrators were men who had no mining experience and were evidently actuated by a desire for a little cheap notoriety without considering the ultimate consequences.