The Dunstan Times. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1868

Dunstan Times, Issue 333, 11 September 1868, Page 2

The Dunstan Times.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1868

Beneath the Ruleof Men entirely JL’ST the pe.v is mightier than he sword.

The subject of an increased water supply, so that the highly auriferous banks of the Molyneux between Clyde and Alexandra might become the scene of extensive sluicing operations, as well as afford employment to a large additional number of miners, has many times engaged the attention of the people of this district, and manifold have been the schemes propounded by which the desired result might be accomplished. The most feasible, and the scheme most likely to prove successful, would be the bringing in the waters of the Lindis, which river is at such an elevation as would command the whole of the Dunstan Flat and the valley of theManuhcrikia, and many square miles of auriferous country could be profitably worked which at the present time is absolutely useless to the enterprise of the goldminer. The construction of a large race or conduit from the Lindis Hiver to any given point at tho baw of the Dunatan Ranges is of so practicable a nature that capital would be very easily procured to prosecute the undertaking, and the only seeming difficulty appears to be in making something like an approximate estimate of

the amount required to bring it to completion. This we opine might very easily be arrived at The Government proffer professional assistance in making preliminary surveys for extensive and difficult water-races, and all we have to do is to request the services of a properly-qualified officer to perforin the duty of ascertaining the levels and length of a water-race from any given point on the Dunstan Ranges to the Lindis River, and the survey would be made. Afterwards the cost per mile for construction could be very easily ascertained. This is a matter which would very

much affect the interests of the Dunstan District, and Clyde in particular. The highly auriferous nature of the banks in the neighborhood of this township has been proved during the last winter to be something extraordinary. The sluicing parties who have removed up from Mnttontown

Point are doing more than twice as much as they did down there. The success of the dredging machines working the lied of the river opposite the Hospital is alsoauother additional proof of the large amount of gold that is contained in the terraced river banks in this immediate neighborhood. The Alexandra town Council have taken action in the matter of bringing iu the head waters of the Manuherikia river to Alexandra, and we should imagine that the Town Council of Clyde ought not to hesitate in proceeding in a similar manner with respect to the head waters of the Lindis.

Hitherto the water-race companies into which foreign capital has been, or endeavored to have been, enlisted were, comparatively but small undertakings, and, what was worse, everyone was so inexperienced in these matters that the cost of construction

was quite out of proportion to the profits derived from the undertaking, and they were conducted at a considerable loss or collapsed before arriving, at maturity. The case ia widely different now. Practical experience has been gained, and water-races may bo

cut with a certainty of success and at

less than one-fourth of what they would have cost some three or four years back, while mining undertakings are embarked in ai.d profits calculated with as much precision and as certain a result as is usually the case with all long established and universally recognised business speculations. A large race, carrying one hundred heads of water, cut from the head of the Lindia river to the head of the Dunstan Flat, could not fail but prove a profitable speculation. It would be as en during as time itself, and as certainly remunerative as the very best description of joint-stock undertakings could be. Tho auriferous ground such a water-race would command could not possibly be exhausted for the next fifty years to come; after which the race could be continued on to other places, and its uses become practically inexhaustible.