OPHIR.

Dunstan Times, Issue 591, 15 August 1873, Page 3

OPHIR.

—o— Aug. 12. The applications of the runholders for largo agricultural leases on their respective runs is causing a great deal of excitement among miners and others. In some instances the land applied for is known to he auriferous or will greatly interfere with mining operations, while iu others the situation is such as to spoil large agricultural blocks of land. Such, for instance, if the six hundred and forty acres applied for hy F. D. Bell, on the Ida Valley Run. This land is in the very centre of the block intended to he thrown open by the Government for selection under the deferred payment system. It is generally believed that the runholders have no intention of putting any of these sections of land under cultivation. They are simply taken up for the purpose of staying settlement, and with the view of rendering very large areas of first-class agricultural land useless, and to enable them to further harrass the small settlers hy preventing commonages from being proclaimed where they are most required. The six hundred and forty acres applied for hy Messrs. Campbell and Low, I hear, on good authority, that a large portion of it is known to be auriferous, while tue remainder of it will greatly interfere with mining operations. The miners are determined to strongly oppose it. A petition for this purpose is in circulation, and is bein numerously signed. It is to be hope d at neither the Government nor the Waste Lands Board will permit the best lands of the Province to be alienated in

this reckless and useless manner, and land many others think the sooner the Land Act s amended in this respect the better. Under the present Act, a runbolder has only to wait until a portion of bis run is applied for to the Government for settlement, and to find out the lowest price that is required. Then he walks into the office,-[and puts in an application for six hundred and forty acres in the .very centre of it, and should he succeed in getting it granted, render the land useless to intending settlers. In mining matters at Black’s No. 1, there is not much fresh to[cominunicare. A large party of Chinese have set iu to work on the flat, and have spent a great deal of time and labor in bringing up a tail race, which they have at length succeeded iu doing. They are’now engaged in stripping a large paddock. Whether they have obtained a pay able prospect or not I hai e been unable to ascertain. A party of Europeans (Cheesemaujand party) are’also bringing up a large tail £racc in tbe outer portion of the flat, but I believe have net struck anything payable as yet. At Black’s No. 3, the] HoraewardfJTound Company are fgetting out first-rate washdirt. They have tbe lead twenty-five feet wide, and are getting as much as three pennyweights to the dish, with any amount of dirt. I believe they intend erecting a puddling machine on ttie claim, and so do away with tbe carting, which they have been forced to do 1 itherto. I am only sui prised they have not done this before, as the carting olgjthe dirt fit an average cost of 2s. per load would [sooa repay tbe cost of a puddling machine. A party of miners have sliuck some goad gold in Shepherd’s Gully, between Drybread and Lauder Creek- 1 hear that the stripping is about six feet, Jam! the prospect half a pennyweight jto_rthe_ bucket, with one foot of wash-dirt.