Yodda Goldfield

New Company Active in Papua

From Our Own Correspondent

Port Moresby, May 16.

EARLY in May a new company, Yodda Goldfields Ltd., was registered as a foreign company in Port Moresby, with a nominal capital of £25,000, in shares of 5/- each, of which £12,500 was offered to the public in Sydney recently and over subscribed. Mr. Ward Williams, the well known American mining engineer, who has been prospecting in Papua for some years past, has been appointed managing direc tor. Other directors are the Hon. T. G.

Murray, M.L.A., of Sydney, and his brother (Mr. Walter Murray), a mining engineer in Australia.

The object of the company is to work the gold mining leases on the Yodda (Northern Division of Papua), which were taken up and prospected by Mr. Ward Williams two years ago.

A modified type of sluicing plant with power-driven units—designed by Mr. Ward Williams—is arriving in Papua on May 25.

It will be transported immediately to the field by Guinea Airways Ltd. and landed on the new drome, Ebei, recently con structed by Mr. Williams, not far from his camp on the Yodda.

A small radio telephone set has been installed by the company on the field, to enable them to keep in touch with Port Moresby and Australia. It has been regis tered with the P.M.G.’s Department, Aus tralia, and is now known as the Yodda Goldfields Station. The public may trans mit messages at a cost of 2d a word from Port Moresby.

The Yodda valley was first examined as far back as 1897 and 1898, when parties of miners extended their operations up the Mambare in the North-eastern Divi sion. But it was not until the well-known miners, Matt Crowe, MacClelland, and Walker, made an expedition to the Yodda in 1900 that the field became known. It was officially proclaimed a goldfield the next year. By the end of 1901, 150 miners were working in the creeks and gullies and one reads that the total output of the Yodda (and the Gira) in that year was estimated at 15,000 ounces.