LATEST AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1361, 9 December 1872, Page 2

LATEST AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Great floods have occurred in the Western districts of New South Wales. The Macquarie River has overflowed its banks, and great damage has been done. Fresh discoveries of alluvial and reefs are reported at Howley, about 100 miles from Port Darwin. Prospecting parties are fitting out. Information, is scant at present. '"'■ • i - ' .V . ;x Two fine new coaches have just been finished to ran on the road betweau Ballarat and Melbourne during the summer months. It is also contemplated to put on a line of coaches to Geelong. The promoters of the Foster Coal Company, which, ia iri course of formation: to i work the coal seam recently discovered near Stockyard Creek, have forwarded samples to Melbourne. The sample was taken from a seam lOin. thick, which, on being followed down, has been, found, according to the latest intelligence, to to have increased in thickness tb. 3ft 3in. Matthew Devescove, charged with mur- ' der on the high seas on board the brig Carl, was brought up at the City Court on the 30th ult. and remanded. It is stated that he was one of the original crew who went from Melbourne to Fiji in the Carl, and that he reshipped as cook and steward at Levuka. He came to Melbourne frpm Adelaide on a vessel as one of the crew, and the detectives, knowing; he was on board, were waiting, and kept him under survdllance till a warrant was ready, when they arrested him. Regarding the prospects of the new rush at Avoca Forest, a correspondent of the Ingtewood Advertiser writes : — "I have been here since the commencement of the rush, and though my prospects hitherto have not been very encouraging, I have no reason to complain. I think there are at present about 1800 or 1900 people 'on the ground, and though a good many leave here, more come to take their places, and the impression is that there will eventually be a permanent gold field opened up in the neighborhood. As yet, I admit, it is only patchy." :V :< A new pottery, called the Chester fieWl Pottery, has recently "been started at Brunswick for the manufacture of brown stoneware, such as teapots, jars of all descriptions, gingerbeer and ink bottles, baking-dishes, bread-pans, fancy jugs, and othar culinary articles. There is abundance of suitable clay of all qualities on the ground on which the works are built. . •■■ ■ . The athletic sports meeting of the Melbourne Cricket Club % on Saturday was attended by about .2000 persons. The best races were the handicaps at quarter of a mile and a mile. la the forraerj four or five competitors finished within , two or three yards of each other. But the, Challenge Cup Match was a most uninteresting affair— Mahoney won each event with absurd ease. There has been nothing very striking in mining in New South Wales since the payment of the two big dividends from the Hill. Those two dividends amounted together to L 86,000. Krohman's dividend, the third since the company started, completed, within seven months, the return of the original capital to the shareholders, w^th a bonus of 6d. a share besides. According to the present market value of the shares in this claim and the adjoining one, the. value of the land is over LI6OO a foot. x The handsome and; commodious warehouse just built by Mr George Robertson, bookseller and stationer, in Little Collins street west, Melbourne, is so near completion that it was opened with a banquet lately. About 200 guests of Mr Robertson's were present, and passed a very pleasant evening. A very large proportion of those present consisted of persona more or. less connected with literature ■; and that was the chief feature of the gathering. It is expected that the total cost of the building will be L9OOO. , The death of the Hon. John HeldeM Wedge, of Tasmania, is announced. The JSdbart Town Mercury refers to him as an old colonist, and one who figured conspicuously both in Tasmania and Victoria many years ago. He was born in 1792, in England, and was therefore 80 years of age at the time of his death. Some graphic accounts have been published in the New ' South "Wales papers about the grasshopper plague. The Dubbo Dispatch says they made their appearance in the streets in myriads ; they were to be seen in perfect clouds, flying in all directions. One gentleman residing on the Macquarie writes :—• "The destruction caused by the grasshoppers is something fearful. They have cleared oho of my paddocks as bare, as Dubbo streets, and are as busy as they can be clearing the others. If we don't soon get a change of weather, there will be no feed left." Another Macquarie river stationholder writes : — " They haye " : *not left a vestige of feed on the plains, and the forest is skinned out nearly as bad. They were on the ground for six days about here as thick as shrimps in a dish, and carried destruction with them, eating saltbush, grass, cottonbush, and a prickly bush, better known as roley-poley. When in flight in some instances, they are as thick and resemble a heavy snow storm, and how far they reach* I don't know, but the whole distance of our run (tea miles by ten) was covered all over alike.?