SEARCH FOR GOLD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 December 1938, Page 5

SEARCH FOR GOLD

DIVINING ROD USED. ABANDONED REEFS NEAR DUNEDIN. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, December 2. Sixty-three years ago a company was operating on gold-bearing reefs in the Saddle Hill area just south of Fairfield, seven miles from Dunedin, and, according to old reports in the possession of the Dunedin School of Mines, a fairamount of gold was won before the mines were closed with unexplained suddenness. It is revealed in this report, dated 1876, that one of the five reefs in the area yielded Bdwt. of gold to the ton and that, up to the year the report was issued, 3000 tons of quartz from this reef had been crushed for a gross return of 12500 z. of gold valued then at £4600, which at today’s price is equivalent to approximately £9OOO. Four other reefs containing, the report says, gold-bearing quartz were discovered, and then suddenly in 1876 work was abandoned for some reason of which there is no record today. Thus, for well over 60 years, the old battery and shafts have remained untouched and practically forgotten, and the Saddle Hill Mines up to a few weeks ago appeared to have passed into history.

Then three months ago,' a. son of r. Gabriel Gully miner, Mr George Livingston, became interested in the reefs of the area, and, armed with his divining rod of supple whalebone, ne set about discovering what “dowsing” would reveal of the riches that lay underground. Mr Livingston conducted a reporter over the area and demonstrated to him what the “magic rod” could reveal to an expert in divining. Whether the rod tells a true tale of underground wealth remains to be seen, but Mr Livingston in sincere in his belief that it does and Saddle Hill offers great opportunity for the development of a rich mining area. “Taking the old returns of 1875 as a basis for comparison, and estimating the great loss the early company suffered through having no equipment to deal with the large quantity of pyrite, these reefs,” Mr Livingston said, "should run from 12dwt. to 20dwt. of gold a ton. One day recently we washed three dishfuls of dirt near a reef wall after a ‘shot,’ and the return from the three dishes was about one-third of a tobacco tin of pyrite carrying a gold content of 1 to 3j.”