DISCOVERY of a RICH QUARTZ REEF.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 570, 21 October 1869, Page 2

DISCOVERY of a RICH QUARTZ REEF.

(Prom the Nelson Colonist.') On Friday considerable commotion was created iu town, ana there was much running to and fro about the Land Office in the morning, caused by the news that a rich gold-bearing quartz reef had been discovered on the Wangapeka river, a distance of about forty-five or fifty miles from Nelson. Early iu the week a miner, Mr Alfred Culleford, came to town with a number of excellent samples of quartz, largely impregnated withgold,somepiecesbeing strewn with specks all along the fracture, others with veins running through them, others with small nuggets partially embedded in the stone. Mr Culleford on Tuesday applied to the Superintendent for "a lease of the ground, but, as explained by his Honor in his speech last night at Eichmond, the law did not allow of a lease being given, and ultimately on Wednesday 16 acres were sold to him at the upset of £2 per acre. The locality of the reef is on a small stream now called " Nuggetty Creek," a tributary of the Boiling River, which

is again a tributary of the Wangapeka. To reach the place the traveller must pass through Wakefield and then there are two routes open to him, either to go by Fox Hill, taking the dray-road over Spooner's Range, and thereby getting into the upper part of Upper Motueka Valley and the Tadinor, and thence following up the Wangapeka, first passing the Sherry, then the Dart, and then the Rolling river, about three miles from the mouth of which is Nuggetty Creek. The other and the nearest route is by Pigeon Valley, which leads into Motueka Valley at the low end, and where there is a good stretch of fiat country until the Upper Wangapeka district is reached. There was a rush to the Government offices on Friday morning, and in little more than an hour's time 115 acres were sold to anxious speculators, followed by others less fortunate, who were met by the inexorable Gazette stopping the sale of the land in that district. The following is a list of the fortunate purchasers of the auriferous country as recorded in the Land Office, with the extent of their purchases : Alfred Culleford 16 Edward Everett 16 E. Everett, J. A. Harley, J. Sharp, T. Brunner, G-. Sinclair, and A. Moore ... 16 J. A. Harley, for self, Thos. Harley, Wm. Harley, Robt. Disher, Ernest Nehse,Geo. Landon, Wm. Lloyd, Thos. Field 16 Wm. Cooksey 16 John Davenport and Co. ... 10 George Harper, Robt. Shallcrass, A. Pitt, and C. L. Maclean 16 H. D. Jackson and C. L. Maclean ... 10 Jas. Smith and Chas. M'Gee 16 131 Great expectations are entertained of the result of this quartz discovery, and though we are rarely disposed to speak enthusiastically of these contingencies, we are bound to say that the appearance of the specimens justifies these anticipations. Surveyors have gone out to survey the blocks, and the Government have dispatched Mr Burnett, in the absence of Mr Blackett at Collingwdod, to report on the locality, preparatory to considering the propriety of proclaiming it a goldfield.