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yielded appreciable quantities of gold. Park, who visited the prospect in 1889, expressed the opinion (Reps. Geol. Expl., 1888–89, p. 68) that it was hardly probably, in view of the evidence afforded by the shaft and old drive, that the anticipations of the shareholders would ever be realized. Evidently little work was subsequently done on the veins, and it is questionable if they at any time showed sufficient promise to justify the expenditure entailed in prospecting them.
WAIMEA COUNTY.
There is no record of any gold being recovered from quartz in Waimea County, but reefs have been found in the county containing more or less of the precious metal, in nearly all cases in conjunction with other minerals such as galena, copper, and zinc. In the basin of the Wangapeka River much prospecting was carried out on reefs of this kind. They appear to have been first discovered about 1870, at the junction of sandstone and limestone on the tributary of the Wangapeka River known as Rolling River, on the northern slopes of Mount Owen. A Nelson company was formed about that time to investigate them. Several open-cuts on the hillside above Blue Creek, at a spot about a mile and a half above the confluence of the creek with Rolling River, revealed the existence of a number of small veins, up to 14 in. in width, carrying a good deal of pyrites and nests of galena; but the results of the work could not have been looked upon as satisfactory, for no more than the making of the shallow open-cuts was done on them at the time.
About 1887 two prospectors named Doran and Culford opened up several bedded segregations or veins of the same character in the locality, but they apparently met with no more success than the old company.
About 1911 George Van Belle and party, prospecting in the spur between Blue Creek and Nuggety Creek, found two reefs outcropping on the fall to the latter, but a crosscut adit put in to intersect them showed that the two reefs were parts of the same reef that had been folded. The reef or reefs contained galena, iron-pyrites, and copper-pyrites, but the total mineral content was probably not more than 10 per cent. of the whole. The adit was driven for about 150ft. A Government subsidy was granted to extend the adit, but instead of using it for the purpose the party directed their attention to several other formations in the neighbourhood, on which a good deal of work was done without satisfactory result.
During the same year the Blue Creek Development Syndicate was prospecting a reef or lode found about one mile and a half south-west of Van Belle’s reef, which showed greater promise, having a much higher mineral content; but, as with Van Belle and party’s efforts, the work of development was not persisted with, and for some years the locality was neglected.
In 1917 Phillip O’Malley did some prospecting there and discovered a reef showing gold in the quartz, and a little later the Colossus Gold-mining Development Company was formed to open it up. In the winter of the year mentioned this company drove an adit on the reef for a distance of 210 ft., put up a rise on it for 30 ft., and sank a winze for 20ft. Samples were taken at every 5 ft., and sent to the Waihi School of Mines for assay, the result being that a shoot of what is described as pay-ore, 60 ft. to 70 ft. in length, was shown to exist. A bulk sample from this shoot
