FAMOUS OKARITO

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 490, 20 October 1928, Page 1

FAMOUS OKARITO

GOLD BELOW SEA-LEVEL

COMPANY BEING FLOATED One of the most famous gold-, fields in the country, the Five Mile Beach at Okarito, South Westland, which did a great deal to make the “golden West Coast,” is to be worked again. The diggers who made fortunes and spilt them in the ’sixties could never get below sea level, and the new scheme is to get down to the untouched gold. An interesting exhibit of gold obtained by two methods of testing at Okarito is on view in the window of Stewart Lawson’s. Mr. R. T. Stewart, hydraulic and mining engineer of Lunedin, who is at present in Auckland, carried out the tests. Extensive boring tests proved that the ground was still unusually rich and these results were checked by a method which admitted of no error, an hydraulic elevating plant being used. The second test, says Mr. Stewart, proved that the ground was even richer than the bores had indicated. The bores showed that values as high as 5s 6d a cubic yard were there, while the second test proved that t hey were as high as 19s a cubic yard. Fivepence a cubic yard is said to be a payable proposition. The Five Mile Beach is a strip of land between the sea and a lagoon. A company is being floated to work over 178 acres by dredging operated by water power drawn Trom Lake Alpine, which is 330 ft above sea level and less than 2£ miles from the claim. Water power is said to be the most economical and efficient method of working alluvial grourid. The company is to have a capital of £30,000, 120,000 shares of 5s each, and already 60.000 shares are said to have been reserved.

Mr. Stewart was the designer of the plant which is engaged in sweeping out the Avon River in Christchurch.