“There's gold in the mountains and silver in the mine,” says the old song. This depression of ours has turned attention to those hidden hoards of raw wealth, and likely auriferous areas are being combed more assiduously than they have been for many a year. Prospectors are panning-off riverbed stuff in hundreds of places in the South Island; dredges are winning steady returns from the heavy black sands; and there are high hopes once more of lifting fortunes from the golden Kawarau. In the North, the Coromandel Peninsula is being re-explored; there is considered to be plenty of gold there still, along the great bush ranges from Cape Colville to Te Aroha.

Another region, but one which has not yet been proven to hold payable gold, that is receiving some exploratory attention, is the rough, much-forested country between the western shores of Lake Taupo and the basin of the Upper Wanganui at Taumarunui. Traces of gold were obtained long ago in the Pungapunga Creek and other streams, and I have heard from the Maoris at Taumarunui that a small nugget of gold was found in the 'seventies in the Pungapunga or thereabouts, and was worn by a chief's wife around her neck. Such stories were often heard in past years in the Tuhua country, as that region is usually called by the Maoris. A few years ago a small syndicate from Napier set to work prospecting the creeks on the west side of the great lake, but apparently it failed to strike it rich. Still, there is a belief among many old hands that there will some day be a great golden-quartz discovery in among the mountains of Tuhua. Let us keep on hoping. Every little helps!