NAPOLEON.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 736, 6 October 1870, Page 3

NAPOLEON.

October 5. A large rush set in during Sunday and Monday to a terrace at the head of the Teviot Creek, in the Duffer Creek district. The prospectors, Messrs Hammill and and Grogan and party, have struck the gold on a terrace on a level with the same run of countryjon which Gladstone, Hayes, Boland, and other good terraces were found. This upper deposit of auriferous washdirt is now attracting a good deal of attention, and the probability of striking it along the range dividing the watershed of Duffer Creek and the Totara Swamp from Orwell Creek and Topsy Creek has been pointed out on several occasions in these reports. The richest and most easily prospected patches of ground yet discovered in this extensive district have been found along the range, and as I have stated on former occasions, it is the matrix of the gold at present being worked on in Brandy Jack's, the Teviot, Half-Ounce, Dnffer, Topsy, Orwell, Barry's, and numerous other creeks. The exact locality of the rush is on a spur between Half-Ounce and Barry's Creeks, and within a few hundred yards of " The Lighthouse," on the track from HalfOunce and Brandy Jack's. The prospectors sunk several shafts, in one of which, about 15ft deep, payable washdirt was found, but gold has since been traced further along to the face of the terrace, and found almost in the roots of the grass. There were between three and w four hundred men on the ground on Monday at mid-day. The rain has beet acceptable to the miners throughout the district, especially about Duffer's and Noble's Creeks, at which places the water-races were almost dry. On the Italian and Mosquito Leads the paddocks were all filled, and the different companies are now busy washing up, consequently a great and much ■wanted improvement in business may be expected. " Hard times" have been coming pretty often and making a rather prolonged stay with the business people here lately. Most of the money earned in the vicinity has found its way to Half-Ounce, Mosqnito, and the other outlying districts, where the work of developing the several existing leads, and prospecting for new ones, has been so extensively carried on ; but now that so many parties are beginning to get gold in those places, we may expect an alteration for the better, at this the real metropolis of the up-river diggings. A smart shock from an earthquake was felt here on Monday, or rather it was felt by some people. I didn't notice it, although I felt a severe " shock" of another kind about the time the earthquake is said to have occurred, for I had just learned that a former friend of mine, whom I wanted to "interview" financially, had taken his departure for the "Penal Settlements," as the diggings over the Saddle are -called by the miners about here. I am informed by a person who is usually very observant of the manifestations of such phenomena that the vibration lasted exactly fifteen seconds, and that it took place at three minutes past 2 p.m. The direction was from north i> south ; the shock was so severo that he

noticed a ripple on the water in a tank standing outside his hon*e, for several seconds after the "*!r,\W h;ul passed, as there was no wind at the time, the disturbance on the water could not bo attributed to that cause. During the same night the heaviest storm which has yet visited the district passed over it. It began to rain aboiit 10 o'clock a.m., with lurid flashes of lightning, followed by deafening peals of thunder, and about midnight it literally " blew a hurricane." A considerable amount of damage was done to several buildings in the township. At daylight an exciting contest might have been seen between the singboard of the Scandinavian Hotel and the lamps belongj ingto the Morning Star, which wore chasing I each other up and clown the main street, and nobody appeared to be game enough to go out in the storm to make peace between them. It continued to rain, with occasional hail storms, all Tuesday morning, and about twelve o'clock a heavy fall of snow came down, which effectually stopped out-door work of every description. A movement has been commenced by the French residents of the district, to raise funds to alleviate the sufferings of their fellow-countrymen wounded in the war, at present or recently raging between France and Prussia. The late war i.ews has created great excitement ; but somehow an opinion is very generally held that the telegrams are not reliable. At all events the Germans and their sympathisers can hardly believe them, and, of course, the French and their admirers wont. The collection of funds for the establishment of the Grey Valley Hospital is making most satisfactory progress throughout the Napoleon district. The delay in proceeding with the erection of the building is solely caused by the dilatoriness of the Government at Nelson in not fixing the site. In connection with this suVject, it may be mentioned that preliminary steps have been taken towards getting up a monster meeting, in some central part of the district, to which delegates will be sent from all parts of the Grey Valley, to draw the Attention of the Genaval Government to the manner in which these gold fields have been treated by the Nelson Government, to protest against the systematic misappropriation and diversion to other districts of the revenue raised here, and to prepare a memorial, pnying chat the mining districts may be placed under the control of the Government of the Colony. There is no doubt, from the present exasperated state of the public mind at the studied and contemptuous neglect with which the Grey Valley ha? been treated by the authorities, that such a petition will be signed by every nonofficial resident on the gold fields ; and the movement is in the hands of men who will carry it to a successful issue, if such a thing is possible.