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probability was it was derived from a lode running along the western side of the Lord Brassey Claim.
Seeing that no trace of the original reef was found in this westerly direction, although much work was done in search of it after McKay’s visit, it is not to be wondered at that those in charge of the property were completely puzzled, and that the origin of the loose quartz was then, and has been ever since, a source of unlimited theorizing and conjecture to the mining-men of the district.
Only one geologist of undoubted standing, Dr. J. Henderson, has visited the locality since the Kirwan’s Reward Company ceased operations, and, it is worthy of careful note, he arrived at quite different conclusions as to the derivation of the broken quartz to those expressed by previous observers. When carrying out the geological survey of the Reefton Subdivision in 1912-13 Dr. Henderson made a very careful study of the Kirwan’s Hill field, with the result that, instead of the reefs in the locality having a south-south-east strike, he states (Geol. Bull. No. 18, p. 135) his observation was that where they were unaffected by faulting the strike was east of north, but that several powerful faults striking west of north traversed the region, near which the orientation of the outcropping lodes conformed more or less with their strike. From these facts he premised that the loose quartz on the Lord Brassey Claim originated from a large auriferous lode striking east of north, with an easterly dip and a northerly pitch, which became involved in the shatter-zone of a powerful dislocation striking north-west and dipping south-west, and that the downward continuation of the lode should therefore exist to the north-eastward, and would probably cross portions of the Mark Twain and Kirwan’s Reward Claims into the Earl Brassey and Newhaven Claims. Dr. Henderson points out, in this connection, it is significant that the only reefs found in this direction not absolutely barren traverse the claims mentioned, and that it is hence not unreasonable to consider them shoots of poorer ore on the same lode-channel as that carrying the shoot which furnished the rich ore of the loose deposit on the Lord Brassey, and which, in all probability, would nowhere reach the surface in the other claims.
Very little information is available as to the nature or extent of the prospecting-work done on the other claims referred to, but it is known that in the Earl Brassey a tunnel of considerable length was driven on a track traceable on the surface for some hundreds of feet, and which carried a little gold. As to reef in the Newhaven Claim, the only mention on record seems to be a brief note in the Mines Reports of 1898 to the effect that a winze was sunk for 30 ft. on a leader which carried gold all the way, and that in the bottom of the winze the stone opened out into a fine body about 5 ft. wide, from which gold could be got by pounding and panning. The writer is unable to find out with any certainty whether or not any further work was done on this formation, but some 350 ft. of driving reported to have been done in 1911 by the Hit-or-Miss Syndicate without satisfactory result may have been on it. In some claims held by the Boatman’s Exploration Syndicate on the east of Kirwan’s Reward a certain amount of prospecting in the nature of shaft-sinking was done on a loose formation of slate containing small fragments of quartz, and another company started a tunnel from near the headwaters of Larry’s Creek, which was driven easterly for about 530 ft. through the Colonial Claim, with the idea of picking up at depth a reef found outcropping in that direction. After going this distance, however, it was found that, owing to a surveying mistake, the distance to
