DISCOVERY OF NEW DIGGINGS AT OTAGO!

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume II, Issue 61, 28 August 1862, Page 2

DISCOVERY OF NEW DIGGINGS AT OTAGO!

87 Pounds Weight of Gold ebougiit in by Two Alkn. The Daily Times of the 18th lust, thus alludes to the subject;—“A great excitement was manilested all through Saturday, concerning the alleged new gold field, from which the eighty-seven pounds weight of gold reported in oar last issue was said to ho obtained. From further inquiries we have made, we think there is no doubt of the bona fules of the matter. The gold is enclosed in a number of different bags, evidently made in the bush under circumstances of difficulty. Some of these are of old canvass, others of pieces of moleskin trowsers, whilst they are roughly sewed with twine.. The lucky owners of the gold are Americans or have resided a long while in America.. They describe the locality as most promising. Acording to their statements they obtained the gold over six miles of country, going; from claim to claim whenever they could not obtain twelve ounces daily. The gold is exceedingly tine, and looks as if it had been washed down a water course. S T 1 T E II E X T O F T il E HEX We started on a prospecting trip about the Ist of February last, crossing the LMolyneux at Oliver’s and striking it again about 20 miles above Pinkerton’s. Wc here obtained sufficient prospects from the banks of the river to justify ns in believing that wc should find rich diggings higher up the streams, or as soon as wc came to a favorable place. About 12 or 15 miles below the junction of the Manuherikia we first obtained payable prospects. We tried a number of small bars (hat we thought would pay about an ounce a-day by working with a cradle. The river was very high at the time, and but little of the bars being out of water, we could not tell much about it, but the diggings on this part of the river will not possibly be of much extent. There are, however, for ten or fifteen miles below where wc obtained onr prospects —flats, and what appeared to be old channels of the river, some of them several miles in length. We attempted to prospect several of them, but having neither bucket or rope, and besides having the misfortune to break our shovel, so as to render it valueless for sinking, we were not able to bottom, and were obliged to push on. The rich part of the river where wc obtained the gold is between the Wanuherikia and Upper C'lutha Valleys. By the time wo arrived hero onr provisions were exhausted, and our tin dish broken by a fall on a hill-side, so that we could only wash a few handfuls of dirt at a time. We bought a little flour, and borrowed a tin dish from one of the stations in the Mamiherikia \ r alley, and panned out forty ounces in about a week. Wo then went up the river as far ns the junction of the Kawarau, and having satisfied ourselves that there was plenty more gold to he had, we started for Dunedin to get pack-horses, and an outfit for a winter campaign. Wo returned by the way of Wai-kouaiti and the Shag Valley. We did' not cross the river at the old place, as wo wished to avoid the people at the station, who had seen ns before. Our object was to work only the richest spots, as wc did not know how soon we might bo discovered and “rushed.” For the first month or six weeks, we were well satisfied with two or three ounces a day each, but as the river became lower, and we learned more of the nature and extent of the diggings, we did not wash anything unless wc thought it would pay about a pound weight a day—that is, six ounces each. The best dirt wo found was the surface dirt on the bars. Wo did not usually wash more than from 3 to 6 inches of the top dirt—a loose sandy gravel not easily washed, but in some places we took from 1 to 2 feet of

it. Wo had nothing to do but to set the cradlo at the edge of the river, and keep it going from morning to night, as one could get dirt and feed the cradle as fast as the other could wash it. The gold is very fine, and accompanied by a great quantity of black sand, from which it is difficult to separate it. The gold we got on the bed rock is heavier, but we did not work any scarcely after the first month or so, as we found that we could not expect to make more than from 1 to 4 ounces a day, although wo did find several good crevices, from one of which wo took over 12 ounces in a few hours. There are high terrace-like banks or bars on both sides of the river, in some places several yards in width, and composed, to a great extent, of washed quartz, gravel, and boulders. In several places there are what appear to be old channels of the river, some of them of considerable length. A\e did not work above the junction of the Kawarau, hut there was every indication of rich diggings on the Upper Clutha Talley and on the hill-sides, there are numbers of large quartz reefs. Very little rain falls in this part of the country ; we did not lose more than two days altogether by wet weather. The winter is the best time for working along the banks of the river as it is highest during the spring and summer, and many of the places that we worked will bo under water. The best way to get there is to take the Shag Talley Road from ATai-kouaiti to the Mannherikia Valley, but persons on foot or horseback can go by the West Taieri, Campbell Thompson’s and Valpy’s. This is the way we came down, and is much the shortest. CONDITIONS OP REWARD. The conditions agreed to between the Provincial Government and Messrs. Hartley and Riley, the discoverers, are, that they are to receive a reward of £2,000, on receipt in three months of IGOOO oz, of gold, the produce of the locality. The men are to give every possible information as to the gold producing spots, and explain the mode of working—one or both men to go with a Government party, and point out the locality. The gold field is to be not less than five miles from any place where miners are working, and if the place has been discovered and worked by any other party before the date of disclosure of the discovery, the reward to Hartley and Riley is to lapse. The men state that they were tracked and discovered by a Victorian miner to (he very spot whore they were getting their richest yields on one of the river bars, but so ignorant was he of the system of working that they succeeded by doleful statements of disappointment, and by saying they were only just “making tucker” to disarm the suspicions of the man, and he left them without suspecting (he richness of the place. The men state the ordinary system of mining by Victorian miners is no good. There is plenty of bush and available timber.