THE TAOTAOROA GOLDFIELD.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2139, 25 March 1886, Page 2

THE TAOTAOROA GOLDFIELD.

No result Ihas yet been ascertained of the samples of quartz taken from the newlydiscovered reefs at Mr Brunskill's, at Taotaoroa, which is looked forward to with some anxiety. Our representative paid a personal visit yesterday to the locality, and was very favourably impressed with the appearance and general bearing to the reefs. We must here, by the way, state that the situation of the reef is not in that part of the district known as Maungakawa, as has hitherto been stated, but is on the succeeding range of hills known as Taotaoroa, although branching off from the former, and by the distinctive appellation of " Taotaoroa " the reefs must be called. The road to Mr Brunskill's land, after leaving the main road, parses over several miles up and down of poor, broken country, with stunted scrub and fern, and with extensive high limestone formation in every direction until the downs of Taotaoroa are reached, where tho soil, especially near the wooded hills, is of very superior quality. Mr Brunskill has several hundred acres of this land, where he recently put up some new buildings and has a number of sheep and cattle. The reef is about half a mile from his homestead, and is first met with in the deep dip between two portions of high ground. Our representative, with Mr Brunskill-, went down to where the reef had been tapped, which is in the bed of a brook, and the face showed a blue l<ok of true stone with fine large clear leads of white quartz running through in various directions. The caisson has a gnrfuine look and the stone itself is very weighty with veins of mundic visible here and there. It i% certainly worth while giving the reef a thorough test; and to get into it for about ten feet, from which the stone could be obtained in sufficient quantity for a trial crushing and assay. The stone has precisely the same look as the quarts found at Mount Ida and other Otago fields.