55 
The earliest record of the discovery of gold in British New Guinea 
is thai contained in Vol. II., p. 69, of Mr. John MacGillivray’s work, 
“Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake,” published in 1852. 
The author says : — “ That gold exists in the western and northern 
portion of New Guinea has long been known ; that it exists also on 
the south-eastern shores of that great island is equally true, as a speci- 
men of pottery procured at Redscar Bay contained a few laminar 
grains of this precious metal. The clay in which the gold is im- 
bedded was probably part of the great alluvial deposit on the banks of 
the rivers, the mouths ot which we saw in that neighbourhood, doubt- 
less originating in the high mountains behind part of the Owen 
Stanley Range.” 
The next reference, 24 years later, is that contained in a letter sent 
to “The Times ” newspaper by Captain Moresby, on his return to Eng- 
land from a surveying cruise in “ H.M.S. Basilisk.” This letter, re- 
published as an appendix to Moresby’s “ Discoveries and Surveys in 
New Guinea,” bears no date, and beyond the bare statement that some 
of the ship’s company found “ auriferous quartz in Fairfax Harbour, 
Port Moresby,” no details are given.. Writing in 1882, Mr. A. C. 
Locket, as to this find, says that some of the crew of the “ Basilisk ” 
picked up a piece of auriferous quartz from the bed of a stream in 
Moresby Island flowing into Pitt Bay, but a second could not be 
found.” 
The year after Captain Moresby’s letter was made public, it was 
announced that gold had been discovered by the Rev. W. G Lawes, 
of the New Guinea Mission on the Laloki River, at no very great dis- 
tance from Port Moresby, and by a party working under the direction 
of the late Mr. Andrew Goldie (a well-known trader), on a tributary of 
the Laloki, which now bears his name. The specimens passed through 
the hands of the late Mr. C. S. Wilkinson, Government Geologist of 
New South Wales. The announcement of the discovery by Messrs. 
Lawes and Goldie, Mr. Wilkinson stated, was confirmation of the con- 
clusion to which arrived from “ an examination of the rock specimens 
already obtained from New Guinea by the Hon. W. Macleay, M.L.C., 
during his voyage of exploration in the “ Chevert,” and by Mr. 
D’Albertis on the Fly River.” Mr. Wilkinson, however, stated that the 
prediction of the possibility of auriferous deposits occurring in the 
Colony was not made public from humane motives. 
The first party organised for purely prospecting purposes was that 
which left Australia in the spring of the year 1898 in the “Colonist.” 
The members of this party examined the country drained by the 
f A. C. Locke. Gold : Its Occurrence and Extraction. London, 1882, p. 479. 
