FERN FLAT DREDGING COMPANY LIMITED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 269, 13 November 1901, Page 2

FERN FLAT DREDGING COMPANY LIMITED.

We bavfi received a copy of the prospectus of 'he Fern Plat Gold Dredging Com n "• Limited now being placed on the m i kut by Mr Q. A. Hurley, sharebivker, of Wellington. The capital is .£12,500 in ,£1 shares, and the aret to be worked is situated at Fern Flat, on the Buller River. Mr Hurley tells us that this claim is unique amongst New Zealand claims, in that it bag stool the test of actual dredging 1 operations along the whole length of its boundary for years. The first dredge operating was the " Alexandra," whioh, although under half the length of a modern dredge, costing nearly double in fuel and labour, and treating only about a third as much as a modern dredge, yet won in seven years 6284 ounces of gold sold for .£24,281, and it must >e remembered that owing to baviDg no elevator to stack tailings sufficiently far awa/, it could not work some of the most promising parts of the river. The Buller dredge also worked for eighteen weeks along the top boundary of the freehold, and also by arrangement with the owner into the freehold, and averaged for the whole time 39 ounces per week, which, after allowing 10 per cent depreciation on a callei up capital of say £6OOO, which is the maximum 1 that it is thought could possibly be required, and after allowing £SO a week fer dredging expanses and five per cant interest on called up capital, ther,e would still remain a sum sufficient to pay over forty per cent in dividends. Of course it is freely admitted that there are elements of risk in dredging, but thesa nre reduced to a minimum when the beat precautions are tak«n, as Mr Hurley assures us have been taken in thin ase, to test the bona fide nature of the proposal. Toe prospictus will be found as an inset in this morniujL'V issue, and the broker may be interviewed at the Hotel Commonwealth for two or three days.