I see no difficulties in it as a gravel sluicing proposition, once provision is made for power. The lease carries no timber, and is a power consideration from the beginning.
Of tin value I can quote last week’s winning of 4,000 odd lbs. of crude tin by 120 men with calabashes, and this too in the face of many weather difficulties.
A site has been set aside for a native village, and already people are congregating and erecting their grass huts.
South Juga.—This lease, as its name implies, lies south of Juga. It covers 855 acres, and is approximately 4 miles long by 2,000 yards wide. It is traversed for its entire length by the track which leaves the Toro-Bauchi road and comes on to Juga. The lease is narrow—it lies in a long gully, and appears bound by a succession of rocky bars. These no doubt may be acting as excellent natural tin savers, but they will make work very irregular. Of the tin value here I cannot speak with any definiteness. I have not traversed the ground in detail, and as no pits have been sunk upon it, I have no samples to guide me. It will have my attention so soon as I can get one lease into a regular producing stage.
Nafuta Dam Site.—In proceeding from Juga to Nafuta one traverses the basin of this proposed dam. As a site its position would be hard to beat. It covers some 356 acres, which narrows down to a steep rocky neck, through which the waters debouch on to the Nafuta flat. The sides of the gorge rise in an abrupt slope, and are composed of granite. It forms an ideal situation for a retaining wall which, if reared 100 feet, would throw back 326 million cubic feet of water. This quantity of water would develop approximately 550 horse-power for 370 days of 12 hours, using 1,220,000 cubic feet per day, and allowing 525,000 cubic feet for daily evaporation and soakage losses.
At present the dam area is enclosed in the Nafuta exclusive area, which expires at Christmas. I propose therefore to take it up as an agricultural lease, which I believe can be secured at annual rental of 1s. per acre.
The dam is a necessity for the operation of Nafuta, though, of course once established, it could generate high tension electricity for transmission to Juga and South Juga, and operate them as well.
A masonry retaining wall could, I think, be most cheaply built, as the stone exists on the site. It would be the installation of a quarrying plant of say half-dozen rock drills and channelling machines, also a small aerial line up the bed of the dam for handling the stone, and a “flying fox” gear across the gorge for handling all the stone in the retaining wall.
In some places at the lower end the water is lost to sight 30 feet or more beneath the huge granite boulders that lie in the gorge.