Big Company

Gold Ridge

Big Company Will Prospect

THE application for several thousand acres surrounding the Gold Ridge area in Guadalcanal by Clutha Development Ltd., re ported in PIM in February, was con firmed by a spokesman for the com pany in Sydney in March.

The company plans to “do some prospecting in the area,” but other than that does not wish, at this stage, to comment.

Mr. J. A. Johnstone, described by a BSIP friend as the “most silent of the pre-war Silent Six” who are the present Balasuna Syndicate, was in Sydney for a few weeks in Feb ruary-March and left for Honiara on March 3 with his reputation for silence intact.

The Balasuna Syndicate owns the prospecting rights of Gold Ridge, central Guadalcanal, where gold lodes were discovered last year.

These lodes are the source of the alluvial gold that is concentrated in the rivers on the northern fall of Guadalcanal’s central mountains.

The area has for many years been of great interest to prospectors and mining interests—including the late E. G. Theodore. But it is just a year ago that the BSIP Government announced that the three lodes had been discovered.

Both the BSIP Government and the Syndicate have endeavoured to interest Australian gold-mining companies in the area and last October three mining experts of Clutha Development (which is one of the Placer Development sub sidiaries) examined the area.

It is understood that testing Gold Ridge will be a major undertaking.