LETTER TO THE EDITOR — Truth or consequences — Enough is enough.

Our group has been in the business of evaluating, exploring and developing gold deposits for many years. Our audits of these deposits, for our benefit and for that of others, have yielded some absolute truths that seem to require repeating from time to time. Those truths include:

* Gold deposits are erratic, some much more so than others.

* If the gold cannot be reliably quantified by conventional fire assay at a professional assay lab, then it does not exist.

* The professionals in the business know which assay labs are competent, and no government regulation is necessary.

* Procedures used by field geologists in the handling of samples and the necessity of check assaying as a normal routine are common knowledge, requiring only a minimum of common sense and experience.

* The pros always have ongoing audits of drill data, including double, triple and quadruple assays, as well as twinned holes. Drill only 10 to 20 ft. from a good hole.

* The nugget effect — whereby some samples have (sometimes significantly) higher values than others — can be resolved through the application of conventional statistics applied to a properly collected database. Whether to cut higher values or not is easily determined.

* Regulatory and government agencies around the world have similar or virtually identical definitions of proven, probable and possible ore reserves. These definitions, including how to arrive at and apply them, have served the resource industry for a long time.

* In our experience, the only time assays have been identical to check assays, to one or two decimal points, is when both have been falsified.

* The rule for officers and directors is that he or she either knew or should have known about factors affecting the company’s performance. In a worst-case scenario, the most that could happen is a slap on the wrist and being barred from the visible position of corporate director.

* No new rules and regulations can prevent a fraud perpetrated with malicious forethought.

Ursel Doran, Core Engineering

Vancouver, B.C.