A RICH MINE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 633, 11 May 1882, Page 2

A RICH MINE.

The township of Matlock (says the Melbourne Leaded is the highest inhabited place in Victoria, and a bare, bleak, and cheerless place it is, especially in the winter time, when five feet of snow on the level, and twelve or fifteen feet in the drifts may frequently be seen. Ever since the great rush, some twenty years ago, the silence of desolation has brooded over this bare, bleak hill, presenting in its three or four huts, and in the traces of some few others which have been left in the shape of ruined chimneys, quite a contrast to its near and comparatively flourishing neighbour—Wood’s Point. Last week, however, the long silence of the almost deserted township was broken by the startling announcement that a wonderfully rich reef had just been opened up, and that there was every prospect of a large rush to the place. The announcement was to the effect that at a place between Jericho and Wood’s Point, and close to the main road, two prospectors, named Allan Folks and Patrick Manyx, began about a month ago to prospect the old Perseverance claim, and within a foot of the surface came across a reef, which, up to Friday, 3rd March, yielded from 8 oz to xo oz to the ton ; that on the day just mentioned they broke with their pick 60 oz of pure gold ; and that they have now come across such wonderful stone that it is believed a ton of it will yield no less than ißcwt of pure gold. The story recalls the old flush times at Ballarat. Can it be true, is the question which naturally rises to one’s lips. To that question we reply by stating that, immediately on the receipt of the information, which we may say, came from our correspondent at Sale, we telegraphed at once to Matlock, and the telegram sent in reply was corroborative of the original report in all respects, save that there appears to have been some slight exaggeration in the statement that a rush had taken place. The shaft, we were informed, was 129 ft. deep and the prospects were splendid. The exact locality of this last sensational find of gold is half a mile from Matlock township, and 300 yards south of a place called Toorak, which consists of a few miners’ houses, perhaps a dozen in all, dropped down apparently by accident, on the roadside. Just at this point that wonderful piece of road making—the Yarra track—overlooks on one side the Black River Range and Valley of the Goulburn, and on the other the Valley of the Jordon lies some r,sooft. below the spectator. Beyond the Jordan, range rises after range, all densely timbered, and swelling upwards to Mount Ban Ban, whose scarped and towering summit forms an appropriate termination to a view of mountain and valley unequalled in Victoria. In all this district large finds of gold have been made, and work is being pushed on, although the evidences of failure are many.