GREY VALLEY GOLD FIELDS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1586, 4 September 1873, Page 2

GREY VALLEY GOLD FIELDS.

[from our own correspondent.]

MINING.

September 3,

Long working hours and plenty of water for sluicing are beginning to tell on "the "gold yields of the different mining districts. The present and recent weather has afforded exceptional advantages for carrying on mining operations,: and the; opportunity has been made .. the most of. It is when a chance of this sort offers that the absence of: a certain! class of miners is mostly felt. These are the hatters,, fossickers, and small detached; parties, who are, generally found ; scattered about among the outlying gullies and creeks, confining their workings, to shallow and 'easily wrought giound, and ,ready to profit by the slightest shower : of rain. The hot and dry weather of last summer had the paradoxical. effect of "freezing out" most of these skirmishers^ who were compelled, much against their inclination, to betake themselves to the public works for employment, or to. seek refuge in the farming districts, which is the last resource of the : thoroghbred gold miner. From a variety of causes, but principally owing to the absence of a continuous supply of water, these "gully-rakers" are becoming: extinct on the gold-fields, and the, large parcels of gold, made up of small individual : returns : brought, in by them after every spell of favorable weather, are sadly missed by the, storekeepers. The result of the labors of those belpnging.tpthisclassiof mine'rs' was the mainstay of thexpmmercial prosperity of the diggings, fbrthey found the" ready money which kept business afloat and enabled the traders to assist arid encourage those engaged inmew mining undertakings on an extended scale. The , auriferons ground now left is too ' poor to be. reworked with profit when dependent on the precarious water supply coming from an : occasional rainfall, and as, a consequence the whole country loses by the departure from the Colony of such a wealth-' producing element. Heaven-born geniuses as the originators of the public' works and immigration schemes are supposed to be, and brilliant administrators as those who are paid so highly for carrying out these schemes get the credit of being, they are all collectively and individually making a mess of it as far as regards the gold-fields if they knew but all. This iwill be more apparent, when everything resolves, itself into a state of inextricable "pie" as the result of the present administration of the aforesaid schemes. Instead of providing the means of profitable and permanent employment for those who were here, arid who have been allowed to go to thegoldr fields of other colonies to enrich those colonies with the fruits of valuable labor, fabulous sums of money are squandered in abortive attempts to introduce the doubtful benefits to be derived, from Scandinavians and scrofula, or Laplanders and lice. If the money already fooled away in this experimental colonization had been laid out in procuring; a water supply to enable those who were here to profit by willing labor the case would be very different; but as it is, the finest body of colonists the country can ever hope to possess again have, been, and are being driven away to make room for foreign paupers and the sweepings of the old country. If proper attention were paid to the development of the goldgelds of: this Colony, which could be made the most valuable and attractive on the face of the earth, population of the right sort would increase fast enough, and there would not be any necessity to employ ex; pensive Immigration Agents to shovel up the offscourings of European humanity for shipment to New Zealand.

NO TOWN. — THE BORING MACHINE.

The experiment of substituting the boring rod for the prospecting shaft, now being made in this district, is -regarded with great interest. The spot chosen for the, first attemptis in the bed of the main creek, just above the confluence of Ab|e's Gully and a little below the junction? of Steele's and No Town Creeks.- iThe object is to ascertain the exact position of thedeepest ground which there is good reason to suppose contains, just at this place, a run of rich auriferous washdirt. The reasons for this supposition are numerous and well-founded, "the .chief and no|ost satisfactory one being that, one of .the richest gutters ever worked in the district was traced into the ground now held; by the boring company, and ; , work; was clis^ continued on it solely because o£ jthe difficulty of contending with the great quantity of water underground. The exact place selected to put down the' first bore was chosen; because it stands, as.'far as can be judged, in the fairway of ithe junction of Steel's main creek and Abe's Gully Leads, should the /course of tHese leads continue. It is supposed the depth to be bored will not exceed 50ffc, and !the machine will work to a depth of 70f t^ so that a thorough examination can be made. The company will obtain a grant of ten acres of ground unless very good reason is shown in opposition,: which is fnot probable, seeing that on the success of the undertaking in the absence of a water r supply, the very existence of jthe place as a gold-field for "white men " will depend. The plan of operation at present sketched out is to ; bore hioles across the valley of the main creek, from reef to reef, to fix the greatest depth, and when this is done,' the best means of working the ground, should payable £old be found, will be decided upon. It will be : found necessary to erect expensive machinery, or to take up a tail-race more than a mile in length, to drain the ground of the expected depth, and if so, it will be admitted the company deserve every , encouragement. Frivolous or vexatious objections to the grant should not, and no doubt will not, be allowed to stand in the way of the prosecution of an enterprise the beneficial results of which, if successful, will be incalculable. This deep run of auriferous drift, underlying the present bed of the No Town Greek, has for years been the subject of speculation. Ie has been sought for at several points, but excepting in the, case of a company who tapped it about five years ago in Big Bill's Creek, near its junction with the main stream, and found good gold in it, this ancient water-course still remains undisturbed. , Hueish and Company and the other parties who recently worked at the bottom of Steele's Creek, are supposed to! have taken most of the large quantity of gold obtained by them from this gutter or its feeders, and to thoroughly test the real valueof this muchrtalkedi'of deposit, is the task the Boring Company have taken in, hand. It is to, be hoped the, plucky undertaking will be as successful as all well-wishers of the district trust it

will. The bpring machine, which has for some time been in use at the Seventeenmile Beach, north of Greymouth, has been lent to the company by the Warden, a favor Tvhich is duly appreciated. If the Government would enable the Warden to distribute a few more of these machines about the Grey Valley, there are numerous places— notably at Nelson Creek, Moonlight, and Half-Ounse— where they could' be used to advantage, and possibly with good results. . r .:. —.

THE CHINESE,

The whole of the old workings along the; bed' of the No Towni Creek ■, from the junction of Abe's Creek to Rough and Tu,mble.,are now, with the exception, of one br ! two spots," ! in the occupation' of Chinese miners. They are working in a most systematic manner and in a style peculiar to themselves. ..A. clean breach is made through everything— headings, tailings, : old ground and new, all go through the boxes. 'It is astonishing that this ground, which has been -riddled- and ransacked for nearly ten years \ by whole generations of European miners, can be made to pay still by any process of 'workin?. But the fact remains that the gene-rally-considered inferior Chinese can make . it pay, and by all accounts pay 1 welli after everyone else, has been starved out. The most singular ' circumstance in connection with this matter is, that now the Chinamen -are demonstrating 7 Jhat auriferous ground can never be considered thoroughly , exhausted:, -until they •' are done with it, the "white men," as they are called (althoughi some, ; pfi them; have the advantage among other superiorities of. being blacker,,, without going sbfar as to say dirtier,- than the ungodly heathens) are now fpllpwing-the Chinese example, and as a 'consequence, quite a rush has taken place for old ground. Quite an extensive undertaking -has been taken in hand by one of these Chinese companies. This is the : bringing up a tail-race through the bed of the creek to work.the site of the first township established in the district. This S.hoo-Fli and

Co., which is the> nearest practicable pronunciation of the name of the association, have received valuable information and assistance from one of the fathers of ithe settlement, who seems to have, taken, the " Chaneyinan " under his especial protection., .This; benevolent and light-hearted "'Corkman "has laid the Chinamen on to an ancienttail-race which f was : made and abandoned nearly ■ eight;' years ago, and which, it is spitefully hinted, has been put to the most mysterious uses I—spirit1 — spirit rapping or tapping among the rest— ever, since. This may be set down as a malicious invention! of some envious but less prosperous rival in business, but the.fact remains, that no one but Jerry knew the exact position of- the tail-race which had been cbvered up for seven years. :He placed his knowledge at the disposal iof Shoo-Fli and Co., and they have made a most intelligent use pfit, thereby saying themselves several months hard labor in cutting a hew race. . ;

GENERAL,

The ; only other, item of news is the failure of an attempt to find the supposed lead running through the Cemetery terrace. Livingstone,! Campbell, and party have been driving for a length of time at the Sough and- Tumble: end Of the terrace without striking anything worth working. The bottom was found to rise in benches, ihe drives were taken in, and the reef; has a general; dip to the south-east, which seems to indicate that the' deepest ground' is in the vicinity !of the main creek, and that any old world leads.that may be found hereafter will jbe discovered either under or in theini'mediatelocality of the' present: watercourse. There is talk of some new ground being opened shortly at Cockney Terrace, and the prospecting going on atM'Kerizib's rush, at the Joyce's Creek end of the Cockney Lead, is exciting some attention. Miners; ' like mariners, have a sortj of hazy belief in certain superstitious, ahd the one which ; at present most grievously disturbs the. f peace of the oldminersjin this -district is the conviction : that the good times ,o£ No Town -have; departed for j ever, now that the Chinamen and the' churches have made a contemporaneous .appearance- among them. ; The uproar caused by the advent of the. heathen yas .bad enough,. but the strife. and, content] on stirred up by the. coming of tbo/niuch Christianity is fearful to contemplate in its ultimate results. Rival Church and School . Bmlding Committees, with homiciclal intentions and truly Christian hatred .towards each other, are springing up with a luxuriance which would' be considered impossible a few' years, ago, and if jthe several projects now afloat for the erec&on of edifices for religious or- educational purposes are carried outjT these Ebenezers will become as plentiful as are . ithe "drums" -erected and dedicated |to spiritualpurposes of another description, lit is a certain sign of the i decay! of material prosperity when a community 1 suddenly and in the twinkling of ian eye, so to.speak,. discovers. that in ; the conglo- 5 merate it has a, soul to be savedjf with, plenty of spare time on : its ■ handsl to' ■'* argue the point" about the best means of performing the operation. ■'■ The $ug- r gestidn 1 thrown' out' by a matter of fact ■ commentator ; , on . these " latter lend barneys," as he irreverently describes, those sectional differences, is practical and feasible. He recommends that if !the different .Committees; have conscientious objection to accept the offer made by! the Warden to place the Court House at! the disposalof clergymen of every denomination, they (the Committees) should icalL an "Economical " Council to discuss ways arid means, with a view to clubbing their' funds and /erecting a building for church ' purposes alone. "' ' ; '* J ; ' I :

NELSON ,OREEK.

There is nothing further known about the late rush at Owen's 1 Look-out.' The prospectors, J): Shannon and party,; are said to have a very good claim," one of the best ever-opened in the district, but* the other claims are not muph spoken of. < ' „ The exploration of the contour and , watershed of Lake Hochstetter is com-.; pleted, and, the surveyors have left! ThY examination of Mr Lord and his staff has shown that there is> not any outlet from the Lake, except through the bed of Nelson Creek. It is. stated on good authority that if the dam mentioned by the . Provincial Engineer in his report on this water-race be. constructed at i the! Nelson Greek outlet, a sheet of^ water, 8p miles in pirpuroference, can be madeayail r able fqr the Hpphate,tter, race. $ow that the surveys and airnepessarj- exploration are finished, there should not, be; furjtjier delay in „cqmrnenoing V( thie [actual: making, of ihe r race. It is the intention of \ the' residents of Nelson Creek to communicate-

with the member for the Grey Valley in the Assembly, to request him to get a ppsitive assurance from the Government before the Parliament is prorogued that the work will be proceeded with at once. It will be the hon. member's interest to push the matter ahead, for if something of the sort be not done, the electorate will be depopulated, and^Mr -ganlßoh will find; that; by the. time the next election comes round hi 3 'constituents are either "up a tree" individually,^or..goiie to Port Darwin in a body. T ""'* :"=""»*««» The formation of the dray road from the foot of Nelson Creek to -Hatter's Terrace is progressing satisfactorily. The mea are now working near Drennan's farm, below Try Again, and the road will be opened as far as the junction of the Try Again and Hatter's Tracks by next week. ; ' ■ • ■ ■' '.■''"■ '■ ;: ■ •'.'■' r ffThe; Rev. Mr Penryri, a Wesleyan clergyman from Reefton, is now' 6U :i a visit to the Grey "V alley. 'Mr Penryn held divine service in the hall attached to Gosling's Hotel, ac Hatter/s, on Tuesday, and preached to a very numerous "congregation, .assembled from, all parts "ofthe district.-; >'. :','. . ■'■" ■ !f •■•■-:•-■-'!/:

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