THE DART DIGGINGS.

Evening Star, Issue 4252, 12 October 1876, Page 4

THE DART DIGGINGS.

In August last a party of four men left, Qneenstown on a prospecting tour up the .Dart Valley, and ; after a couple of months' Operations, one of their number returned to Queenstown and informs the ' Mail' that for two or three miles beyond the Forks, and between the tributaries, lies a rather •- extensive'flat which the prospectors visited ■" last summer and expressed their opinion ; tliAtit would be found payable auriferous. '■ This ground the party were unable to reach . an account of the excessively swampy na- . tare of the ground. Under these circumstances they prospected the beaches below it and the mouth of several gorges. Here they found good payable ground in the beaches on either side, of the river. for about five miles —and what they had prospected would pay from 10s to LI a day per man. The party have made application for the ground •lid water-race (six heads), and think it Would be better for others who may work

there if the country was proclaimed under the saining regulations as of inferior character, . claims in the proportion of one acre ■■ f< pjsr'man can be taken up. Our informant is irf opinion thai these beaches are not highly i. auriferous y but, at the same time, he is •■:.■ aatisfied, from past experience, that with a supply of>water, which can be easily brought on from many little side streams running from the mountain, they can be made to pay say LlO per week for four men. The beaches are not so porous as those on the Shotover and Arrow rivers, and consequently they contain little water to overcome in working. , The character of the country was repre- .: seated to.Mr "Warden Beetham, who promised to submit the proposal for extended claim to the goldfields department.