WEST CANTERBURY GOLDFIELDS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 304, 7 September 1865, Page 3

WEST CANTERBURY GOLDFIELDS.

ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY POUNDS WEIGHT OF GOLD OBTAINED BY THREE MEN. (From the Correspondeat of the Canterbury Press.) Hokitika, August 28. The past week opened with splendid weather down here, and the hopes of the miners and business people rose with the barometer. From the Upper Kanieri, came news of a fresh “ rush” with a fine prospect, and from the South splendid accounts were brought in. A sample of gold I saw in the possession of a friend, who had drawn out nine ounces for his share in something less than ten days 4 work, excelled in size and purity any I have met with for a long time. There was scarcely a piece smaller than a four-penny bit. Although the populating still increases about the Totara, the first ground opened seems to keep pace with the requirements ; and as gold has been struck at a depth of forty feet, with six feet of washdirt, there will be room for a large number of men. The town has been pretty full this week, consequent upon the arrival of some three hundred passengers by the Lady Darling, and the public houses have been doing a fair business, but now all is quiet again, the new hands having all more or less settled down to some occupation, or gone to the mines. The oveiland mail from Christchurch was delivered in Hokitika about three o’clock ou Friday afternoon, by Flowers, the mailman, whose assiduity in the performance of his duty has led so much to the success of this postal lino. He came by the new track along the Araliura, which saves those numerous and tedious crossings of the Teramakau, which were so annoying to travellers by the old route. This new road is also shorter by some miles, and were it corduroyed would be a first-class one ; but the soil is so rotten over winch it passes that it will never carry much traffic in any other way. We take an extract from a private letter that reached Christchurch from Hokitika last evening, dated August 26: “ A party of three men came into town on Saturday night with 116 lbs weight of gold. The above is from reliable authority.”