WAYSIDE NOTES.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2773, 6 January 1872, Page 2

WAYSIDE NOTES.

(By our Special Reporter.) CARRICKT )N. There are several other features connected with the Garrick Range that 1 have not yet noticed. I have missed one reef well defined, and probably as rich as any other yet found. It is in anout-df the way place, has attracted little attention as yet, the only parties wprjang being the prospectors. It is situated some sixtyor eighty chains to the north-west of the Heart of ' Oak, on a hill side in Pipeclay Gully, and is called the Nil Despcrandura The reef crops out on the surface through the entire length of the prospectors’ claim—a distance of 1200 feet—apd.where cut in the tunnel, is some three feet in thickness. I he tunnel has been driven some sixty feet. Gold can be seen in the stone readily, some of it being rich; and payable prospects can he washed from the rubble and loose dirt with which it is mixed. Although not opened to any great extent, sufficient prospects have been obtained to warrant arrangements being made for the erection of crushing machinery. A machine will, it is considered, be at work by Christmas. It is to lie driven by water power, capable of working ten head of stamps, a moiety of whjch will dply at first he ‘erected. CJaims are taken up at either end, will doubtless now bo vigorously prosecuted. Another claim in an entirely different locality, and distinct line of reef, called the Young Australian, looks well and promising. It is some two feet six inches in thickness, seems well defined, prospects satisfactory, and has inspired its shareholders with considerable hopes. As, far as present appearances go, it is only just to say that their hopes seem well founded. "The Border Chief, still another line of reef, has turned out some remarkably rich stone, but the leader is thin, and requires all its richness to render it protiiable to work. I may, hdweyep, go op enumerating reefs, all distinct and gold-bearing for a considerable length, without in tlie slightest degree overstepping the bounds of truth ; but enough has been already said t,b convince any careful reader of my “notes” of the wealth and promise of the district, Perhaps iu few localities in the Colony of Now Zealand is there a better field for enterprise, or a surer investment for capital in mining property. Shares are offered for very small amounts, in many claims simply from the necessities of the shareholders. Working men deny themselves of much that a mining community consider essential to their habits and mode of life, simply for the object of retaining shares that they hold in the various claims ; —only parting with interests when compelled to do so by sheer necessity. A huge portion of the spare cash of the inhabitants of Cromwell is also directed to the developement of these -reefs; The great, lack at the present time retarding, the development of the field may be considered population and capital. The place and its resources have outgrown the people .

in occupancy. The men and money avavU, able are both too small to cope magnitude of the work they have to perform. Great excitement it appears took place some eighteen months since, wheh the Bendigo reefs were opened, and their failure had doubtless a depressing influence on the Carriek range ; but any person, however uninstructcd, cannot walk over and cursorily examine the two places without being impressed with the difference between the prospects of perm a ence and wealth the two districts present. The want of water on the Garrick range, however, considerably retards its progress. There is as yet but one reef found—l believe—where water power can be obtained for crushing purposes. Lignite has to be carted from the Bannockburn, a distance of three or four miles, to the batteries on the hill costing some 35s per ton when delivered. While the trial xrushings of quartz from Hendigo Gully in many cases yielded dispiriting results, the crushings of stone from this locality have nearly all been satisfactory—the lowest, lam informed, being 10 dwts. to the ton. 1 cannot do otherwise in the performance of the duty you have entrusted to me, than to impress on your readers the fair promise of the district; and to predicate that at no remote period a large reefing population will be located here, not confined as at present to one spur of the range, but scattered over a large portion of the whole of its eastern slope. Claims are marked out in a very rude and imperfect manner, frequently infringing on each other, and will, should they prove as valuable as I imagine, afford scope for much future dispute and litigation. Several disputed cases have already arisen as to claims of partnership, owing to the loose manner in which miners conduct their business ; a share in a payable reef being a thing not to be given up without a struggle. It will certainly not be a nice place to winter in. Some two thousand five hundred feet above the sea, it resembles the Nevis, where three or four months during the year the inhabitants are unable to pursue their calling. The wind will not fail to whistle shrilly over these bleak, bald spurs; and the lack of firing, and dear lignite, which to many places would have to be packed by horses, will preclude the idea of a cheery coal or wood fire, so comfort-yielding to the cold and tired miner, when the snow has clothed the hill sides, and the frost has turned the running water into hard ice. It has been the custom to consider mining of any desciiption as extra hazardous -goldmining, especially quartz-reefing, doubly so —yet when conducted with economy and prudence, it has, as a rule, been found to be generally as lucrative and reproductive as agriculture or commerce. We have been writing up agriculture and novel industries too much, and neglected the wealth under our feet. The development of minerals not only tends to create a market for our agricultural products, to increase the amount of our imports and revenue, but puts a double value on every house and acre of land in its vicinity ; and by the permanent character of the labor it employs, helps more to maintain apd ipepeasg a population than the occasional demand for laborers by less steady occupations. Beefing demands the combination of labor and capital. Isolated effort is comparatively useless. Combination for success is imperative ; and the careful manner in which people as a rule look at gold mining as a profitable investment, doubtless is the result of the desultory manner in which our mines have been worked, the want of cooperation among the miners themselves, and the too often erratic manner in which mining operations have been conducted.