THE QUARTZ REEFS AT BANKS PENINSULA.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 534, 24 July 1869, Page 2

THE QUARTZ REEFS AT BANKS PENINSULA.

It was recently mentioned by telegraph that quartz reefs had been discovered on Banks Peninsula, and that the land had been bought up. The particulars are thus stated by the Lyttelton Times : —" The origin of the discovery is duo to some remarks which fell from Dr Hector, who, on a recent visit to this province, stated that it was by no means improbable that gold would be found to exist on the Peninsula. Acting upon tais hint, and upon other information gathered from persons acquainted with the locality, Messrs Eeynell (an old digger), Bowen, and De Bourbel started on Friday last, for the purpose of making a search for quartz. The whole of the first day was spent, without result, in prospecting the Kaituna Valley. On the second day, the party tried the neighborhood of M'Queen's house, and, after a close search up a neighboring gully, found, on a saddle running down towards M'Queen's, a quartz reef of considerable promise, which, after due enquiry, has been purchased at the Waste Land Office. From indications best understood by practical diggers, we understand that Mr Eeynell is very sanguine that the reef will turn out to be gold-bearing, and these expectations are strengthened by the well-known fact that the color of gold has been found at different times for years past, in the streams which take their rise in tho range. As a proof of the extent of the reef, we may mention that traces of it are to be found on the Lyttelton side of the harbor, between Governor's Bay and Raupaki, but lying too deep for working purposes. Of course it may turn out that the quartz is quartz and nothing more, and that no gold will ever be found in it, but, even then, the discovery is interesting in a geological point of view, as tending to upset the prevailing notion that the whole of tho peninsula is a recent volcanic formation." . A