SEEKING GOLD

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 375, 9 November 1932, Page 2

SEEKING GOLD

SUCCESS REWARDS EFFORTS OF MAN AND WIFE. "MATES" ON SMALL FIELD. Alice SpringSi, Saturday. A remarkable story of resource and grit rewarded, demonstrating also the unguessed gold and other mineral wealth of the territory, is told by Mr. and Mrs. James Udall, 'who arrived here yesterday. For the last 12 months, husband and wife have worked as mates on one of the smallest, yet inost promising, gold shows in Australia. Now three big mining agents are competing to buy it. This week an option to buy was purchased by a London company, represented by Dr. Herbert Basedow, for £5000 down and £25,000 fully paid shares. Six miles south-east of Tennants, this mine, known as the Great Northern, was discovered in 1927, when a lubra brought a stone streaked with gold to Ambrose Banka Banka Station. The Australian Mint Exploration Company took a six months' option, but a further option was refused. Mr. Udall, a prospector (formerly a mining reporter on the "Wide River Times, Queensland), with his wife, arrived by car last July, with all their worldly goods and a 100gallon tank of water loaded on the car also. They had spent nearly a year in Western New South Wales and Queensland looking for gold. Their Stamp Mill. They found here one shaft 50 feet d'eep, but no ropes. They tied portmanteau straps and skid chains together, and took a fishing line from their knapsack. Mrs. Udall lowered her husband and then Pulled up samp-les, almost weeping lest sh'e.should be unable to draw him up too. . With no resources save rawhide and timber, they erected a stamp mill. The stamp pieee was an old iron pulley, the wheels were made from petrol cases, and the belt from greenhide. The ores th'ey carted daily for threequarters of a niile on their shoulders. Water for crushing was carried six miles from Tennants, half a ton at a time, and used over and over again feeding back to the battery by means oi a bicycle pump and belt. Rich Yields. Mining engineers consider the achievement the most extraordinary exampls of resource and efficiency ever encountered. One could throw a good-sized tablecloth over the whole thirig. The last crushing produced 25oz to the ton from two tons of ore. Udal discovered one leader one inch wide, yielding 1113oz to the ton. The mme is alsd rich in bismuth carbonate ~6 to 13 per cent.— actually more lucrative than gold, and selling in England at 4s 9d a lb. The last assays showed 54 ounces of gold and 13 per cent. of bismuth. Success is now m sight. Husband and wife have lived in a tent . in the brush, facihg unending york and tremendous difSculties alone to gain success. Mrs. Udall was a Melbourne girl, never outback before and of frail physique. Her husband aqknowledge that all their success was due to her co-operation and courage. . Sbe says_ laughing: "The life was just a picnic. I boilea the billy."> Udall ch'erishes now a scheme for aeroplane prospecting soine 100 miles west of Tennants, from which a blackfellow not long ago brought a pickle-bottle full n-f !