THE WANGAPEKA QUARTZ REEF.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 576, 4 November 1869, Page 2

THE WANGAPEKA QUARTZ REEF.

The Wangapeka reefs are exciting the Nelson people and papers. The mining element is making a strong stand against the alienation of the ground by sale to Government officials. The Colonist supports them, and quotes largely law and precedent. The Examine)', with little chance of carrying conviction, says the cry is made in the interest of politics. Meantime there , is a " dead-lock," but there seems some probability of the ground being declared within the boundaries of the Goldfields. It is declared that all the public maps, including the Admiralty chart, show the Rolling River to be three miles within the Goldfields, but that a sketch is being made in the Survey Office showing it to be a mile and a quarter outside of the Goldfields boundary ! On the subject of the discovery, and of the information obtained by the Government prior to the sale, Mr Baigent has written : " About fourteen years ago. a party was cot up under my auspices in Wakefield, subscriptions being made in money and provisions in order to explore the districts of the Baton, Blue Creek, and other rivers, and the party found both coal and gold. Some time afterwards, a bonus was offered by the Government, and gold was found ; I, myself, producing some three and a half ounces in a bottle in the Council Chamber. Pour men afterwards obtained a bonus of £IOO from the Council, and from that time to thepresedt the land, although it was looked on as no man's land, has been worked for gold, and a good deal has been obtained without much being said about it. Things remained in this state until the late Mr Robinson and Dr Hocbstetter went up in that quarter to see the country and to look for coal on the Baton; but Mr Robinson never saw this reef, and was not within fifteen miles of it, for both he and Dr Hochstetter were carried across the Sherry river, at its junction with the Wangapeka, as rain came on and they hastened back as the rivers were rising. " Respecting the specimens of quartz which 1 brought into town, I shall explain all about them. Mr Smith, of the Porest Inn, came to me as representative of the district, with a statement that the diggers on the Wangapeka complained that it was a shame in the Government to lease the land all around them, so as that they had no room left to turn a horse out to graze, unless thoy trespassed on other people's property. Mr Smith at this time showed me some specimens of gold given to him by Mr Chandler, who snid they were found on the very creek out of which this reef rises, and he added that he was sure the reef itself, from which these samples must have come, would very shortly be discovered. I asked Mr Smith to" lend me the specimens, and I would take them to the Superintendent to show what was being got, and help to put a stop to the land leasing complained of. When I came to towr, I could not find the Superintendent in his office, but I showed the nuggets to Mr Greenfield, and told him the particulars above narrated, and asked him to give them to the Superintendent, and tell him the facts ; and my object in bringing them down. Next week I came to town again and saw the Superintendent in the street. I ask him if Mr Greenfield had given him the information about the nuggets and the laud, and he said, " Yes, I have made it all right." Now, how was it that if I was so careful to protect the diggers' interests against the leasing of the land with the information that I then possessed, that the Superintendent, although with all that information and the specimens before his eyes, and Culleford's application, too, should forget both the digger's interests and the interests of the Province by selling the land absolutely?"