DOG AS PROSPECTOR

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 December 1938, Page 8

DOG AS PROSPECTOR

GOLD WORTH £BOO UNEARTHED. Nuggets of gold have been accidentally discovered in Australia in numerous strange ways, such as unearthing by a ploughshare and the stubbing of a toe against an outcrop, but Larkinville (Western Australia) has provided probably the queerest example of all, writes the Sydney correspondent of “The Press.” Two prospectors there secured £BOO of gold in a day because of the playful habits of their dog.

. Larkinville was the scene of a discovery a few years ago of the Golden Eagle nugget of 11350 z, the largest obtained in Western Australia. Three thousand men rushed to the scene after that discovery. Keen-eyed and hungry for gold, they tramped and fossicked daily over the ground for months, but found little other gold. Now Spot, a dog of mixed ancestry, has succeeded where they failed. When hundreds of others deserted the field, James Eastwood, Jack Hogan and another man stayed on. Eastwood’s dog stayed, too—and now has poured wealth into the pockets of his owner and his owner’s pal, Hogan. One day Eastwood threw his dog a stick as they walked through the bush. Spot was in playful mood, and, lying down, he worried the stick with good-hum-oured growls. As he did so, he disturbed the surface of the ground, and in the morning sunlight Eastwood saw gold. It lay glistening on a little mound of dirt dug up by the dog. Gouging into the sunbaked soil. Eastwood could find no brothers to the 2oz nugget. But there must be more. He hurried back to the camp and showed Hogan the discovery, and, with nan and pick, the two set out. Carefully they dug into the dry soil, and six inches down, Hogan's pick rang on the cap of a reef. He sank his pick down beside the reef and prised upward. As the reef cap yielded suddenly there were spilled into the sunlight five small nuggets, and, half-disturbed from its ancient bed, the edge of an 18oz nugget poked through the soil. That afternoon the two men did a little picking to expose the reef cap and scraped £BOO worth of gold off in the dish. They considered that one day's work. Next day they dug more deeply, and soon along the edge of the hole was a line of nuggets which had been embedded in the reef, which also showed free gold. By panning off the stone from the reef the two prospectors found that it was worth 20oz to the ton.