LATEST PROM THE PALMER.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 250, 31 March 1875, Page 3

LATEST PROM THE PALMER.

The Cooktown correspondent of the Sydney Morning Ilerald writes under date 20th February as follows : News from the Palmer is varied, and seems to take its coloring from the individual success or otherwise of those imparting it. But at present at least there is nothing doing there ; the rains have been much heavier in the " field " than at Cooktown, and there seems to be little chance of any important finds until the rains are well over. The population is very sparse on the fields at the old workings, but s ill there are a great number of diggers scattered in small parties in the numberless creeks and gullies that form a vast network among the hills and ranges from the Palmer to the Mitchell. The chief part of the population is at the heads of the various rivers, and there cannot be less than 2000 to 3000 on the Normanby rush. Of course there is little doing save by those who have been some time there, and who, having stacked their washdirt, can now enjoy the fruits of their forethought. A party came into town a few days ago for a protective lease for a reef they had discovered within sixty miles of Cooktown. They brought some very rich and beautiful specimens with them, and, if they have even a few tons of stone like the specimeus, they are lucky men. But yet these specimens—and I do not suppose they are the poorest in the reef—fall very far short of those I have seen from many of the Palmer reefs, notably the Queen of the North. I think that the Palmer, near Edwardstown, will be the great reefing district of this gold-field, and there the reefs are numerous, and so far as they have been tested are rich—richer than any reefs as yet discovered in Queensland. The new reef at the Normanby is described as well defined, about two feet thick at the outcrop, and seems to become richer as it goes downward, and can be traced some distance. Though I do not believe by any means that the alluvial works on the Palmer gold field are exhausted, yet it must be to the reefs that we must look for any real permanency or stability here. I have little doubt that there are many Oakey Creeks and Jessop's Gullies yet unfound, and yet to be found, and that thousands will make a "good thing" yet on the Palmer ; but the alluvial workings are so shallow, so soon run over, that no stability can be expected from them—no surety for the investment of money on the diggings or in Cooktown—the port of all the vast goldfield from the Normanby to the Mitchell. It is to the reefs that we must look, and they certainly promise well, for some guarantee that we shall have no fatal collapse like the Port Darwin or some of the Victorian diggings ; and that, unwise in our generation, we are not building greater stores and larger warehouses, and investing capital, but to sit among the ruins of our fortunes and regret. But in Cooktown and on the gold-field there is but little capital to place the necessary machinery on the ground and develop the rich and apparently numberless reefs that can be found in any part of the field, and so it comes to the old tale —I hope in this case it will not have to be "twice told." We must look to the capitalists of the South —a help that once given will, I am certain, result in a manifold repayment. If large part'es, with the late high, not to say exorbitant, price of stores, could make a fair thing out of their reefs with the rude appliances for crushing now in use, what would be the result when machinery is brought into play and the proper appliances for gold-saving ! I am no advocate for mining fevers and the speculative mania t.hat so often seizes on those who are interested in this enticing species of commercial gambling ; but the reefs at the Palmer are so rich and so numerous, that I feel no hesitation in saying that a vast source of prosperity must be developed by the placing of machinery on the field, and that no small part of tbe acquired wealth must flow into the capitalist's hands who placed the machinery at the disposal of the miners.