A FORTUNE IN A BUCKET.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2452, 29 March 1888, Page 3

A FORTUNE IN A BUCKET.

Ai'.oi'T sixteen years ago, on a small hill about throe miles fnun the place whcie the Ironbarks (N.S.W.) railway station now stamls, some tremendous finds ol gold were made. On one oecasiona bucketful of stuff returned .ITiOOO. This took everhoc!j' by storm, and a company was formed to work the liiai\ellouslj rieh around. They worked for a, time, and lit ]:i~t could not make it pay, so gave it up. Had they worked on for another five feet, it i-< said they would have hit on one. of the riehe-t and moat wonderful pa tunes of gold ever found in the colonies. They did not do this, however, suitl "mining experts' have laughed at the idea of payable gold being found in the Ironbarks district, until a bout six months ago, when one of the old miners, John Charlton, was put in chargo of about twenty acres of the land, now known as the Golden Gully, by some gentlemen who had reason to think it worth while to watch the place, and had accordingly taken it up. He looked at the place, and formed an idea to get into the monkey shaft at the SOft. level of the Prince Billy, intending to get on to the. clay vein. "The shaft drive was cleaned out, and within two or three weeks of this being done several rich reefs of quartz, limestone, mispickcl, and (hist of all) a lorle of decomposed ironstone were discovered ; and the latter is said to have gone at the enormous rate of 4U4oz. to the ton. A number of specimens have been taken, and a company formed. The specimens arc peculiarly rich, and as a tangible proof of the yield from the ironstone a pretty cake of gold is shown weighing 4oz. 14dwt. 6gr., which was obobtained by a Sydney assaycr, from a washing (not by assay) of 21b 6oz of stone. The quartz specimens are smothered in gold, and the mispickel ia in some cases almost hanging together by the shilling metal. The incredible part of it all is that so many reefs of such marvellous richness should have been dis-' covered within twenty feet of each other. The specimens are simply unique, and the find, if it continues, will do for mining in New South Wales what Mount Morgan and Charters Towers have done for Queensland ; and mining experts state that the main reef has not yet been struck.