Gold On Ramu

Rowlands Creek Area

Another New Guinea

Find

Mr. W. A. Freeman, chairman of directors of Placer Development Ltd. and Bulolo Gold Dredging Ltd., left Sydney by the Moldavia for London on January 23.

Mr. J. A. Carpenter, of the Arm of Messrs. W. R. Carpenter & Co. Ltd. left by the Montoro on February 14 on a business trip to New Guinea.

The Very Rev. Father Joseph Ben der, M.S.C., recently appointed Super ior of the Sacred Heart Missionairies in the Vicariate of Rabaul, is return ing to New Guinea by the Montoro which sailed on February 4.

The Rev. Father Jerome, S.V.D., of Juo station, in the Vicariate of East ern New Guinea, where he has been a missionary for 20 years, with the Society of the Divine Word, sailed by the Montoro for Madang after a holi day in Sydney.

Dr. Felix Speiser, an ethnologist, of Basle, Switzerland, has expressed to the Administrator of New Guinea (Brigad ier-General Wisdom) his appreciation of the courtesy and assistance received by him from officers of the Admin istration during his recent visit to the territory to make an anthropological and ethnographical study of the nat ives of New Britain.

Mr. Frank R. Short, a director of Placer Development Co. and Bulolo Gold Dredging Co., was a passenger to Sydney by the last Montoro.

Mrs. C. O. Lelean, of Danuilevu, Fiji, returned there by the Sonoma on January 24, after a brief visit to Vic toria.

From Our Own Correspondent RABAUL, January 15.

THE Warden of the Morobe Goldfield has sent in his report on the new find at the Ramu River.

The locality is on a small creek named Rowlands Creek —after the discoverer— which flows into the Ornapinka Creek at a height of 6,000 feet above sea level.

Rowlands Creek, at its source, is a mere trickle of water, but where it debouches into the Ornapinka it is some 15 feet wide. The creek is about 1,200 yards long, there is no gold for the first 100 yards, but here a conglomeration of ironstone and quartzite is met below which coarse gold is found in the creek bed. Dishes showed good prospects of 5 grains to the dwt. The gold in Row lands Creek is coarse and valued at £3/13/6 per oz. The gold in Ornapinka Creek is of a different character and appears to come from a quartz shed.

Very heavy black sand is encountered and the gold is not easily cleaned.

As the find is located on the top of a watershed, great difficulty will be ex perienced in bringing water to the scene of operations. The country is not thickly timbered but there is sufficient available for mining purposes. The fact that the gold is met with below and not above the occurrence of the ironstone indicates a lode formation in the vicinity. It is significant that no ironstone occurs on Omaninka Creek, above its junction with Row lands Creek.

At the present time a rush of miners is quite unwarranted and only those who are well equipped with food and carriers should essay the trip. The natives are very numerous and hostile and seem to resent the intrusion of miners.