NORTHERN QUEENSLAND.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1240, 26 February 1878, Page 3

NORTHERN QUEENSLAND.

(Correspondent "Sydney Morning Herald.") The northern wet season is at its height. The Hodgkinson is running merrily, too merrily for some of the machine owners whose dams have been carried away. All the stampers are at work, and a good deal of gold may bs expected. People have pretty well been cured of the wild expectations they formed concerning this field. Twelve months ago it was regarded as a veritable Tom Tiddler's ground, and we were regaled every week with the news of the discovery of some reef ten, twelve, and even twenty feet wide, carrying two or three ounces of gold right through the stone. One rich crushing from the No. 1 North Kingaborough, a reef locally known by the elegant title of Flying Pig, seemed to give colour to tbese stories, and the eager manner in which two claimants for a share in the claim rushed into litigation and paid big fees to the lawyers seemed undoubtedly to confirm it. Then the crushinga rapidly dwindled, claimholders found that the groat majority of reefs carried stone giving two ounces and lees ; and this, with carting and crushing charges, at nearly £1 per ton, did not give "tucker." The water began to give out during the dry season, little or none had been stored, and well-sinking was nearly hopeless on that elevated plateau, so machine after machine "hung up." _ Then the natural grasses, never very Rood, withered during the dry season; feed was expensive, and horses allowed to run in the outlying bush were speared by the blacks, so carting rose to a prohibitory tariff. At last all the men, with fainti hearts or light purses, began to go away, having only steady old hands to stick to their claims. So the Hodgkinson settled down to a solid foundation of fact, every vestiga of the rosy-colored bubbles blown about, it having vanished into thin air. From that solid foundation it \iill now work up, and I venture to predict that some of the most extravagant hopes of its future success will ultimately bo fulfilled, but in a different manner and after a longer interval than those who expressed them ever expected. There is a practicfllly inexhaustible supply of paying stone contained in large permanent-looking reefs. Carriage from Port Douglas will not bo high when a good road is formed on the ehort and easy track now discovered from there. Machine owners will have to bring down their crushing prices ; in fact, I notice that the leading firm has already reduced its

charges from £2 to 255, and 22?, according to the size of the parcel. The older field, the Palmer, also contains a number of reefing patches, some rich, others only moderately prolific in gold. Of these several are being worked with improved machinery, and there is no doubt that a great many jnore will be developed in time. There, again, illusions have vanished, and the prosperity of the field depends on hard naked fact. Perhaps the most wonderful feature of the Palmer is the continued yield of the alluvial workings. Warden Selheim estimates the total yield of gold last year at over 180,0000 z., most of winch came from the alluvial. And as soon as the wet season set in there was an immediate increase in the yield from dirt stacked in readiness for the rain. The escort went up from Cooktown about a fortnight ago, and when it sturted there was a little over 2000 >z. in the bank ; it returned yesterday with 8300 oz. The Chinese population has decreased, according to most reliable authority, by over 3000. These have not gone home, but have scattered over the colony, and there have been, I believe, a con- I siderable number of deaths amongst them. Our new Immigration Act has apparently been successful in its avowed object of stopping the Chinese invasion. We hear of no steamers coming from Hongkong this wet season, and I do not think that even Chinese perseverance will induce would-be diggers to try the experiment of an overland trip. While writing about tho North I may mention thai, the body of a murdered Chinaman was found at Deep Creek, about thirty miles from Cooktown, stripped and robbed. It is not likely that the murderer will be found. Inspector Clohesy brought down a parcel of native weapons to be forwarded to the Paris Exhibition.