THE KUMARA.

Evening Star, Issue 4255, 16 October 1876, Page 2

THE KUMARA.

• - ..[Br Tbxbobaph.] _ ,y i ' —— .. . , -. {From'our own Correspondent.) < ff , | Kumaba, October 16. 'lt is estimated thatbetweensix and saves ? hundredarrived .here last week, and aearlyT !>.- the same number left.t. Unless the Jead'«■","' traced jih a more compact fornv whjßnjwro-;, " J bably it will prove rich; ininyiniwe IW,*- , f leave. : The present sinking is Bft., andthe., t K. r claims yti&e. Some get payable; washrothers rv a none. • The deposits of wash are patchy and "'"■ f uhceetainV Claims have been taken ot one ?f f, ?!; Tiiile and a half ahead, as far as Kapitea Creek, on the'line of the 'race^''iuid''iiuai7 r;^'^ck''''^'::; flpecting the surrounding country,, fronv, , irf which fresh discoveries are hoped. If these " r ' discoveries are made' there will be a great exodus, from here as hundreussre waiting and shephering in the meantime. The township is building rapidly, J the sawmills, of - which!there are twjb, «ntlf night, while supplies from Hokitikaar* also ■ coming in.. Agreat'number of ;prbfi^ting frt " v : claims on the lead will bottom JhM wee)L j, j ! i More' gold is offering on account of the last 4 '°' -^;i ' ■'■ -\ - ■.■: ■::£;•-^ We ire indebted to Mr John of s>George street; for the perusal ofnaleTSerpfi received by him from an old Otagominer; sf who, writing from Kumara on the Bth inst.', --',■ says:— ''' : v ? -- •■■■ ■- ■■-■: : ,'..,-;■.; ■■■■, :.,>:.;

If you know anybody who is coming tare, 'stop J <•* ■ them, aa it is no good their coming without money. place is rignt enough, for the gold; is here,'-i«. r "«T there are no «reat piles to bs made, I>ut there "are any ameunt of holes bottomed on payable gold, the+x*; \ majority of which will run from 4 dwts to half i&m,,i a, ounce to the load; with from ten to twenty -feet of dirt, which I'call good ground. But-there-is no, water to be had till it is -brought ; ' in by race, and this is a great, Still, if anybody-has got-from Lls he could not do* better than come hut it V*r : is no good cominguiless yoa mean to " wire^VJhi > F earnest, as there is no fossicking eronhd. '; The •<*' ' work on this field requires time ana? money P the i ground has all to be close timbered from "40ftto 100 ft in rather stoney soil, which it takes'thtee or " T four .weeks; and sometimes more, to bottom; the ,- ' boulders requiring to be blasted out. About* • 100,' people arrive here, daily, but set- one. out of every fifty has any money:;, They t <•- go the first day into the . busht where..-&e lead is, and because they cannot see "anything,. * on account of the timber they go back field is no-good* -About-lOOrJunnels Ju.e JEOinsvin just npw, but none will be oh paydble-BtaraF Christmas. They (are six or. eight of* party with 70ft a man. Besides these, there axe a hundred claimsi bottomed on shallow .ground in theTlSi - ~~ These have 10ft of dirti'ahd are good at tiba&l JUKI*" 'Tr no use people tunning- the place down, for it will be * ■' r l a good average diggiftr *>&• years, rwith hun- J dreds of claims that, will pay good wages and give employment to numbers of' wages* men. 'lt is. certainly not •of .much account at present, because of the want of water."-i'l I know a good many who are on gold; but w have a hard struggle. There is very little tick; .a Igiven, and anyone"coming here absut < 'might,l believe, boy in veryoheap, for there Is ' money;knookingabout; in Jnot,XJieyerbefore '&W' ~" at any rush so , much "hard-up"' men as there are here, Indeed, we have ill the* • ,i of the country. The township is a large one j and I in four or five months it willyl believe, be thehest yp place in New Zeaiand, with plenty ofmoney,bans '■/ spent in it. As I have already said, 4t jb no new chum's diggings: it wants money,lime, and ' s ' experience; in a word, it is mining proper here. • :!il * ; ''•' ) .. ] : —-—•'•' '■••' ''■' '--.Li X; m An old digger on the West Coast, speaking of the * Xumara,to which he had paid a vMt.says thereb-ie are far more people there than the extent of payable ground so far discovered warrants. .'There tare a few good claims near the prospectors', bat after that the wash dirt gets poorer until "it runs <>ui>t6 a -• *, color.",; Many of the.claima only just payable'have if e to be worked by tunnels, some of these being 1,200 X to 1,700 feet in length. The ground is fuller of big? *-,*,< boalders than he ever saw before on any diggings he has ever been on, and "they seem to have lost the- lead last week,"- and a great, many diggers were leaving-<th» jruskw,,.. A urge number of business places had .been ereicted - < fe and were still, going up, more -than he ever before k saw on any rash in such A short time. - l sites were very high, fetching.) from Jdls to L7OO. His opinion was that if many of the business people «, had not already burnt their fingers, they were in a fair way of doing so, People there seemed to Je ~~ "~* mad about the rush; his opinion of 11 being that fT it has been in former time the bed of -a.liver, and 2 the present patch of diggings iB the patches on the present rivers or the workings n 3 -'J on tihe banks of them. Other patches may "' be, and no doubt he thought would betound xftt A*, v from the present one, but his belief was not to the same extent as the present one; for this one was in a line with, and- about the same distance- from the main range as the other goldtields -are which have been, worked; He was sorry to see by the papers that so many people were coming there, and regretted the jujoottntft: that- appeared-Jno-wthe^^^^ various Provincial papers about the richness of the ground, as manyV who '"had left comfortable homes and'situations with the expectation, that a large rich field with*- golden claim, awaited them, would find themselves sadly disappointed jf~ arrival. The day he wrote he saw one man who& ¥i had come over from Wellington under such oircunvstance, misled by the glaring report* which he had read, and who was then weaving the rash to lookfor work, and others he had heard Of had'been-eom* ' polled to do the same.—'Press.'