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 but this plan of operating was not found to pay, and the property was handed over to a tribute party which worked it subsequently for several years. During the time the mine operated 2,751 tons of material were crushed for a yield of 981 oz. 14 dwt. 9 gr. gold, valued at £3,956 1s. 6d., making it evident that, considering the amount of waste rock that had to be taken with the quartz, the stringers themselves must have been fairly rich.

Roaring Meg Creek Reefs.—About 1896 a run of reef-bearing country was located in Dug-out Creek, a headwater tributary of Roaring Meg Creek, and at a spot not far from the headwaters of Blackball Creek, and a claim was taken up, to work which the Garden Gully Gold-mining Company was subsequently formed. Three auriferous reefs having a north-and-south trend outcropped on the claim, parallel to and within 600 ft. of one another. The company did quite a lot of work on these various reefs, and removed the Croesus battery to the locality to treat the stone, but the results of its operations were unsatisfactory. Large reefs were shown to exist and to live down to some depth, but they were of too low grade to pay for working. On what was termed the main reef an adit was driven at a depth of 240 ft. below the outcrop, which intersected stone at 532 ft. This stone when driven on proved to be from 9 ft. to 11 ft. wide. It is said that gold could be seen in it at times, but on the whole it did not carry payable values. Some small crushings, totalling 14 tons, were put through the battery in 1903–4 for a yield of a trifle over 10 dwt. gold per ton, and in the early part of 1906 a crushing of 33 tons was reported to give 1 oz. per ton; but there is nothing to show where the stone came from, and the fact that the company did so little crushing and abandoned its holding during the last-mentioned year is sufficient indication that the general prospects could not have been encouraging.

Moonlight Creek Reefs.—In upper Moonlight Creek auriferous quartz was found at a very early period in New Zealand mining history, and a battery—probably the first to be provided on a mine in the South Island—was erected there in 1868, the parts having been transported up the bed of the creek with immense labour and cost. Prior to this date rich alluvial had been won from the creek, much of the gold having quartz adhering to it, and in Caples Creek some good shoad stone was picked up. The old company erected its battery in this latter creek, and evidently made an effort to trace the reef from which this shoad was derived, but its search could not have been rewarded, for it soon ceased operations. The field was then neglected for many years. The next mention made of the locality in the mining records is to the effect that in 1877 some prospecting was going on on the Prophet and Deering’s Wonder Claims. The former of these covered the area on which the old battery had been erected nearly thirty years previously. On this occasion a discovery was said to have been made on the claim of a formation of slate and quartz, 6 ft. in width, carrying a little gold, and on the other claim, which adjoined it to the south, a reef 2 ft. wide is said to have been found in which gold was showing. Adits were driven on both claims with a view to cutting the deposits at depth, but either no reef was met with or it was too poor to pay for working, for mining effort at both places soon ceased again.

During subsequent years, under the auspices of the Blackball Prospecting Association, assisted by subsidies granted by the Mines Department, much further prospecting was carried out in this vicinity, but although many reefs were found none was of a payable character. In 1925, after prospecting had been abandoned for some years, a party led by J. Rasmussen again made