Page:Downey•Quartz·Reefs·West·Coast•1928.pdf/14

 solid stone only lives down to a point about 20 ft. above No. 2 adit. Below that point the reef breaks up into stringers or veinlets in much the same way as on the extreme north and south ends. This stringer formation carries gold, but not in quantities payable for working. There is still a fair amount of stone of possibly payable grade to be won from between the No. 2 Golden Bar adit and the intermediate mentioned, but failing some other discovery of importance this cannot keep the mine going for more than a brief period.

As far as prospecting in the locality away from this particular reef is concerned, it must be said that there seems little to justify it. A number of reefs have been located in the ranges higher up the Wakamarina River, but they have in all cases been barren.

In 1915 G. E. Humphries and party prospected some reefs a little north of the Dominion Consolidated Company's property, near Deep Creek. These reefs varied in width from a few inches to 5 ft., and on the outcrops some of them appeared to contain fair gold content, with, at times, a percentage of scheelite. Reporting to his Department in May, 1915, Inspector of Mines T. O. Bishop stated that from three of them he had obtained fair prospects of fine gold by panning. By March, 1916, one of the reefs, the Smile of Fortune, had been driven on for 136 ft. near the surface, and had been intersected about 60 ft. lower down by a crosscut about 200 ft. in length, at which point it was said to be 3 ft. in width and to show fair prospects of gold. Further work on this reef indicated, however, that it did not live down, and a similar result followed considerable work by way of tunnelling done on other formations in the vicinity. In practically all cases the reefs appeared to die out in depth, and the values generally were found to be low and patchy. The syndicate erected a ten-stamp battery, but no crushing was ever done in it.

About two miles farther north, Alford and party, subsequently known as the "Mountain Camp Mining Partnership," found in 1915 a small reef, dipping easterly at a low angle, at a considerable elevation on the hillside north of Mountain Camp Creek. A shallow adit was put in on this for about 60 ft., and in parts the reef carried fair values. Two samples, taken from 55 ft. and 60 ft. in the drive, gave on assay 17 dwt. gold and 6.99 per cent. scheelite, and 3 dwt. gold and 6.79 per cent. scheelite, respectively, but the results of further assays showed the general values to be much lower than this.

A crosscut was later started to intersect the reef about 60 ft. below the outcrop, but it was not carried in far enough to effect its purpose. In the meantime the market for scheelite failed, and the gold content of the reef being not nearly high enough to pay for working, operations were suspended and have not since been resumed.

The Westland Province, although it has produced a wealth of gold from its alluvial deposits, has, like Marlborough Province, not as yet had the good fortune to find any quartz-mining field of importance. The only locality within the province from which gold has been won from quartz is the neighbourhood of Ross, where, at Cedar Creek and Donnelly's Creek, reefs were opened up and worked for a time. There are other localities, however, such as the Taipo River, the Wilberforce, Mount Rangitoto, and Cook's River, where auriferous reefs have been noted and more or less prospected.