. The new New Guinea. keen trading and money-making instincts, have in this way learned to prospectfor themselves, and more than one native has madea good deal out of his mining rights by selling themto white speculators. Take it all in all, the mineral wealth of Papua isenough to furnish very good opportunities of money-making to any man with a thousand or two to spend,but it is more immediately profitable and safer todevelop existing discoveries than to go prospectingafter new ones. This is not likely to deter the manwho loves change, chance, and adventure from goinggold-hunting. The possibl
. The new New Guinea. keen trading and money-making instincts, have in this way learned to prospectfor themselves, and more than one native has madea good deal out of his mining rights by selling themto white speculators. Take it all in all, the mineral wealth of Papua isenough to furnish very good opportunities of money-making to any man with a thousand or two to spend,but it is more immediately profitable and safer todevelop existing discoveries than to go prospectingafter new ones. This is not likely to deter the manwho loves change, chance, and adventure from goinggold-hunting. The possible prizes of the gold-hunter are great, and of adventure and discovery hewill have enough to satisfy Marco Polo is not a miner in the country who cannot tellyou of a gold-bearing district that is still unpro-spected—perhaps actually unvisited, its auriferousqualities being guessed by the appearance of the sur-rounding country. The Government, which hasrather more than enough to do with its small income. PROSPECTORS DIFFICULTIES 197 as things are, yet manages to squeeze out a fewhundreds occasionally for prospecting work and tokeep a reward standing of £1000 for the discoveryof a new field. To go and hunt up possible gold-fields in Papua costs anything from ^^500 or ;^6ooupwards after landing at Port Moresby or prospectors, wise in everything but theart of keeping their gold when they find it, arealways ready to guide a trip of the kind. Prospect-ing and exploring are inextricably mixed up in Papua;the gold-seeker is sure to find a new tribe or two,a mountain that nobody has seen, a branch or sourceof some great river—one cannot say what the sur-prises of the interior may be. As a rule, theprospector passes these things over with simple con-tempt. He has no use for them—you cannot eat amountain range if your boys are short of food, andrivers that deposit no gold upon their shores are merenuisances. . When one thinks of the medalsand the fe
Size: 1239px × 2017px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherphila, bookyear1911
