Mining Monomaniacs.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 186, 3 June 1873, Page 7

Mining Monomaniacs.

A correspondent of the Ovens and Murray ii Advertiser writes, under date April 28 C| “ln your issue of to-day you speak of a monomaniac who has been driving for a rich lead at Doctor’s Gully for six years. I can assure you that the case is not a singular one, and that a parallel can be found for it at Bright, where a Hungarian has been driving for the Pioneer reef through stone for twelve years. He has never used an ounce of powder, and he has carried out the whole of the gplft and the stone in his apron. He has y.iriven GOO feet, and still drives on in hopes of finding his hidden El Dorado.- Had he driven in a straight line he could probably have reached the reef in about 250 feet, but whenever he has reached a bar of hard stone he has turned to the right or left, following the softest ground, and then making again for the line from which he had diverged. In this way it is estimated that at times he has made almost a half circle, and nearly broken into his own tunnel again, lie lives on bread and coil'ee, and when he cannot procure these from sympathising friends, he goes out gardening or doing such work as will bring him in a few shillings, and then renews the task he has set himself. He is a man like the one at Daylesford, of irreproachable character, and a total abstainer. I could not help feeling an interest in the man, as he spoke so confidently, in broken English, of his one day reaching the reef, and then of visiting his dear native land.”