MINING.

Kumara Times, Issue 1037, 27 January 1880, Page 2

MINING.

The rush at the lower end of the old Scandinavian Lead still continues to attract considerable attention, there being now no less than eight payable claims in working order, or nearly so. To show the faith the miners have in the continuation of this lead and the payable nature of the. ground, it is only necessary tosay that they waited on the manager of the Waimea—Kumara Water race on Friday evening last, desiring him to erect fluming for the conveyance of water to their workings. The gold in this place runs in what my old friend " Gus" calls " two bits of streaks," one of which has been crossed and proved payable for over thirty feet; and should the prospects further on prove to be as good as they are at this crossing, we may expect soon to hear the musical voice of the Scandinavian again ringing in our midst. Our Larrikin boys, with all their perseverance in trying to trace their lead to the south-east, have not been so successsul in their search as their Scandinavian brethren, owing to the difficult nature of the ground, the want of funds, and the restrictive nature of the regulations under the " Mines Act, 1877," wherein it distinctly says : " It shall not be lawful for the "Warden to grant a prospecting claim for any new discovery at a less distance than two miles from any previously existing workings on alluvial ground." To the further advancement of a gold-field this is as your " Special Mining Reporter " says, the most restrictive and prohibitive law men could make. Verily we are deteriorating in the construction of our laws in this respect. Four years ago we had to go but one mile from existing workings. Twenty five years ago, in the colony of Victoria, a prospecting claim would be granted on any untried hill, terrace, or flat in the immediate vicinity of existing -workiugs, and in no case would a party have to go over two hundred yards ahead of the last payable claim, even -ou>a new rush, to obtain protection for his double area. Bat here, where the configuration of the country tends to lead the prospector astray rather than to guide; here, where there is no defined bottom, on which, when reached, the gold is expected to lay; here, where sinking and driving has principally to be done by powder and other expensive methods no provision whatever has been made, but our law-makers have, iu their wisdom, seen fit to make these difficulties of the prospectors doubly so by sending him two miles into the wilderness before he is considered worthy of tkeir recognition. Taking the four cardinal pointfii- of the compass from Kumara, there is, strictly speaking, but one direction—the south, that would come

under this "two mile" clause. This shows the advisability, as "Our Spe* cial " hints, of some steps being taken to have this law rescinded, or, at any rate, of having the power given to the Warden to graut, according to his own judgment, extended areas within a reasonable distance of existing work* in g* S. B. H.