CROMWELL.

Dunstan Times, Issue 322, 26 June 1868, Page 2

CROMWELL.

(from our own - correspondent.) June 22. No resident of long standing in the Dunstan District can have failed to witness the varying effects of frosty weather in the condition of our miners. The eternal Molyneux will not go down, except when determined frost holds as prisoners the numerous streams that feed it. At the present time a large number of miners may be seen actively dislodging wash dirt from under ponderous boulders on the Kawarau and Molyneux rivers, and those at work on the former between Cromwell and the Roaring Meg are earning good wages. Whilst the late frost has been doing much service to the river devotees it has been doing considerable harm to the miners at the Nevis, Potter's and Bendigo Gullies and also at Quartz Reef Point' and the Lowburn, who have been compelled to leave their claims and seek the means of subsistence in other localities, where the weather is not so severe. I can safely state that never during the mining days of the Cromwell district has the in ning share-market been more healthy than wi'lrin the last two months. Shares have teen sold in the extensive sluicing claims at tha Kawarau Gorgoat enormous figures, ami, although, such claims have been actively worked during the last four or live years, they are deemed equally valuable now as when they were onci;ed. The inexhaustibility of that I<>. cality is truly marvellous, an I so is that of a con iderable number of othor places as well. Adams's (hilly oi the western side of the Kawarau, has been actively worked nearly as long a* the Kawarau Gorge, and yet within the last few weeks shares have been sold at 100 J. and 130/. in ordinary claims, not calculated by their appearance to induce a snranger to value them at a 51. note. Aitchinson and party have just completed in it a magnificent tail-race to reach some maiden ground not "blotched" in bygone days and they have already found proofs that their labor will be handsomely rewarded. Robinson and party, Tivnbredth and party, Dickson, Jelly and party and many others in the same locality are earning wages averageing from 11 to 10/. per week. A t the bottom of \ dam's, is Shepherd's Creek and Flat, and here the Chinese are working with considerable assiduity, and beyond any controversy they are entitled to the sincere admiration of even the most inveterate European hater of them. They undertake and overcome difficulties that have disheartened hundreds of miners in the Cromwell district for the last five years, and on that score they are deserving of the success which attends their labor : near the lower end of old Bannockburn, John is there box sluicing ground that Europeans would never attempt. Smith's gully, Pipeclay, and every other locality on the western side of the Kawarau are busily worked and yielding -well. The Great Westmoreland Canal Company, some few weeks back diverted part of the main race water to some ground on the banks of the Clutha, about a mile and a half above Cromwell, and the new locality bids fair to equal any as yet opened by the shiicers of the District; the fact of this new ground proving satisfactory, has caused the prospects of sluicing in the immediate neighborhood of the Town to brighten, and great regret is expressed that the ground on which Cromwell is bui t, cannot be sluiced, as every practical man here is fully convinced that outbuildings cover an incalculable amount of gold. The Town is built, and the land sold, consequently past errors in erecting the Town where it stands, cannot now be remedied, and therefore all hopes of securing the hidden wealth of the " promontory" are eternally vanished. In your last issne, a local paragraph appeared to the effect, that the friends of Councillor Whetter have resolved to bring him forward as a candidate for the occupation of the Civic Chair at the ap-

proaching election on the twenty-first of next month A requisition, numerously signed, has been prepared for presentation to Mr. Whetter, de siring to place himself in the hands of the ratepayers for election, and it is very probable that he will be returned without opposition. The course taken by the Dunstan Times in its last issue in finding fault with the unwarrantable delay in delivering the Mails at Clyde last week by Cobb's employees has given unbounded satisfaction throughout the District; no doubt it was impossible to bring on the coach through its journey punctually to time, but the Mails had no right to be detained for so many days on the highway, and the public have every right to complain.