GREY VALLEY GOLD-FIELDS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XIV, Issue 1673, 15 December 1873, Page 2

GREY VALLEY GOLD-FIELDS.

| FROM OUR OWN" CORRESPONDENT.] JUPJIIfCf. The Warden visited Half-Ounce on Saturday, and settled the important dispute between the Just-in-Time Goldmining Company and the Half-Ounce Water- race Company, relative to the right jo the former Company to take water from the latter Company's race to work the machinery of ]bhe Just-in-Time. The decision affirms the fight of 'the Waterrace Company to charge for the jyater, and sets the question at rest as to wherjS the Company's right to the water commences. The Just-in-Tirae reefers fillegpd, in the innocence of thsir hearts, that theiv claim was a creek claim, and, "as such," the owners of it were entitled to the use of that inevitable one sluice head of water, under the now historical Clause 8, Section 10 of the old Regulations. The watermen objected to this, and the aqurias of the company — the waterman himself — very reasonably and very naturally contended that a claim, the main shaft of which was on a considerably elevated tenface/with/ja tail-race morctjian SODOft Jong to the creefc, and t "to'wliibh & w^s necessary to raise Water sonic 50ft or 60ft in height to work the lifting niachinery— cojjjd pojb by any stretching of the most elastic definition bp considered a creek claims. The Warden took this view of it, and held that if defendants to the suit wanted the use of the water they should pay for it, and it was afterwards underjjicqd diaj; the Water-race Company syere willing t,o' iet tvat.ep q,)- a me re , nominal rent, but they wanted 'UifSirrigjifc

to charge, confirmed. What made this very pretty little quarrel prettier still, as it stood, was the awkward fact that several of the shareholders in tho leasehold also held interests in the water-race, although the two tire entirely separate properties, and being placed in this duplex position, they were in imminent danger at one time of. performing that proverbially unwise operation known in speculative surgery of amputation of their respective and, in some instances in the presont case, very respectably-sized noses in revenge for some facial shortcoming.

The application for protection for a prospecting area, made at the last sitting of the Warden's Court by O'Rielly and party, is of some importance, owing to the situation of the ground fo» which protection is asked. It is on the leading range between the water-shed of the . Noble and Duffer Creek valleys, and this locality was at. one 'time much thought of as likely to' contain valuable gold deposits. It was to this place the famous ■" Spec's" rush took place in 1869. Some very good ground was opened then, and the usual amount of litigation took place in consequence. Oue dispute, from, this place occupied the Warden's Court, Ahaura, dining four consecutive days, necessitating a personal visit to the ground of Mr' Warden Lowe and three surveyors, including the Government Surveyor, before the matter was settled. -The ground was very rotten and difficult to work, and a dreadful accident which took place, resulting in the death of one poor fellow and the serious injury and narrow escape of two others, had a good deal to do with the final desertion of the neighborhood. This range is the source of all the auriferous deposits in the surrounding low-lying country, and it is certain 5 to be a place of import mCc yet. Although it may be asked — " What's in a name ?" the dismally-suggestive name of this locality has been the "means of spreading a sort of hazy notion that the ground is notoriously poor, and of that description from whicli the Californian hydraulicers " pay trial " of a spec to the load can only be obtained. But it's nothing of the sort. The place was named after one of tbe original prosr pectors, a very enterprising old "cuss," whose penchant for going it blind "ona flush," raising it on pairs, or bluffing it "on spec," gave him the 'sobriquet by which he was most generally known. Hence the title of the locality in which he made the discovery with which his name was associated.