MINING REPORT.

Kumara Times, Issue 3102, 12 October 1886, Page 2

MINING REPORT.

[By our Special Mining Reporter.] The Lead, October 9. lellit not in Gnth! hut the truth must be told, that Charley Hood lug found use for the signal bntJa at No 2 channel. Toe other day I was aBtOD . i.sh.d to see the bulls rising repeatedly • and, going down in the channel to se« what was the matter, I could j u „i dis-ci-rii the form of rt man, Neptune likr>, amidst a shower of spray, trying to keep the passage dear in the channel, and all the time anathematising Bill Morris, who happened to be sluicing at the time. It was no mean display, and the ready flow of eloquence forcibly reminded me of n scene depicted by MiltoD, when the hero of the occasion addressed bis confreres. The underground gallery made a very good pandemoniura, hut Milton did not supply his hero with such an abundance of water. The. stoppages have been of very short duration, and as the state of repair of the channel is just now as bad aa it is ever likely to be, there is nothing particular to fear iu the matter. I Those sluicing into No. 1 channel continue to lose a good deal of time by long and very frequent stoppages, and .though every effort has been made to improve this state of affairs, by extra flushing water and otherwise, there is still much lost time. All the recent accounts from the Kimberley, and especially letters from reliable Kuraara men, tend to show that it has been almost entirely a steamboat rush. The few straggling parties of prospectors showed steaaTboat proprietors that they had an opportunity, and they have embraced it to the cost of many a too-confiding digger, and the misery of hundreds of families. Storekeepers who have been lured there with large stocks continue the frand began by the steamboat men, even in the face of the overwhelming evidence that at present it is a rank duffer. The crime will be none the less heinous even if the large crowd who are there should be successful in finding payable gold. In reference to my opinion in my last letter of the probabilities of deeper levels on the Kumara, I find that a number of miners hold the same opinion, and I heard one successful dig»er say that he was willing to expend £IOO in an attempt to try deep levels. The late rains have been of great advantage to the district, as both Holmes' supply and that of the Government would have been completely run out by this time had it not rained last week. The question as to whether ! science or the geneial knowledga of the digger lias measured the demand for water to suit the supply, or whether the supply has been measured to suit the demand, would stand some argu. ment, but certain it is they have been very evenly balanced for a long time back.