CROMWELL.

Dunstan Times, Issue 356, 19 February 1869, Page 2

CROMWELL.

(prom a correspoxdext.) The question of races or no races on the Cromwell course is at last set. tied, St. Patrick’s Day being fixed for the annual race meeting ; a better day could not bo chosen, as it is a recognised holiday with the miners, and by that time their pockets will be somewhat replenished after the heavy drain caused by the usual Christmas sports and the Dunstan races. The mining community generally arc doing well throughout the whole of the District, therefore it may reasonably be expected they will turn out in force on that day. Nothing has transpired as yet with regard to the Programme, but from the liberality generally displayed on like occasions by the Cromwelitcs, there is no doubt but that some capital stakes. will be competed -for:-—«•••*-'iJiliDiLM * The mining on private property mentioned by you in former issues is likely to prove a most important feature in the mining prospects of the Cromwell District. Prior to the sinking of the shaft by Sharkey and party, they had driven a tunnel between four and five hundred feet in length from the banks of the Kawarau and struck gold ; from the shaft they have ascertained the gold to be confined to a gutter or seam of about thirty feet wide, and the wash dirt to be about six feet thick. Gold was found the whole length of the tunnel, but, as the ground was occupied by the township, it could not be worked. Of the exact prospects obtained from the wash I cannot speak with certainty, but I am informed they are highly remunerative. Time, however, will soon solve that question, as if Starkey continue working the ground, that fact of itself will prove it is payable, and we may expect that in a short time some extensive workings will be carried on in the neighborhood of the township. Some fewldays past I visited, for the first time, the diggings in the Upper Bannockburn and tributaries; I there found many familiar faces, who expressed themselves well satisfied with their prospects. The ground generally being flat and of a level description, a large amount of labor has to be expended in the construction of long tail races to work the ground. Notwithstanding thisoutlayin labor and capital before gold is obtained, good wages will be earned by the miners in this out-of-the-way locality. Sullivan and Party and Wilson and Meagher, all of whom I have known for some length of time, are doing very well, and say that their claims will take from two to three years to work out. The population of the Bannockburn remains abotit the same as formerly. Several miners with whom I conversed, from Adams’s and Pipeclay Gullies expressed themselves well satisfied with the remuneration they are obtaining for their labor; therefore, upon the whole, I imagine the diggings at the Bannockbum and the neighborhood are in a highly satisfactory state.