Australian Items.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 15, Issue 787, 16 May 1870, Page 3

Australian Items.

The Melbourne correspondent of the Otago Daily Times, under date 25th April, says : —There is now being fitted out in this city an expedition which has for its purpose thorough exploration, of that ' no man's land' the Auckland Islands. It is to be composed of 15 persons, the second in command of whom will be the gentleman who was clerk to the captain of the ill-fated G-eneral Grant. The objects of the party are manifold. Gfold is one of them. Firstly, the gold which may lie wrapped up in the folds of Sarah's bosoma and which only a practical miner would be able to discover. Secondly, the gold which we know does lis in the recesses of the treacherous cave where the gallant ship and her gallant captain went down. To discover the first they took with them a gentleman who discovered some of the richest alluvial workings in California ; to find the second they have divers and apparatus. They propose remaining on the islands from six to nine months—and hope during that time to fill up with seals, so as to ensure themselves from loss. The principal streets of Brisbane were lighted with gas for the first time on the

Ist ult. ..•'The effect, however, is said to, .have been not at all brilliant,; indeed, i\ was almost impossible to discover that the; town had been lighted. The Courier, advises the citizens still to carry lanterns with them, and suggests that the failure of the light on the oecasipn referred to was "only a mild sell perpetrated on the rate payers to remind thorn of the Ist of April."