SERPENTINE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 167, 17 May 1872, Page 5

SERPENTINE.

-Y- —• i (From our own Correspondent.)

After an unusually dry season of between five and six months' duration a number of falls of raiq, or rather snow and rain combined, have given us a fair Rupply of watsr, and all hands are once more at work from daylight to dark. Should the weather but continue open for a few weeks longer several parties will be enabled to wash the paddocks which, in some cases, they have been engaged in stripping since last Christmas. Mining affairs are looking up, more especially at (xer-

nmri Jack's. There was a claim taken u{7 here soiiie liine buck and abandoned.It has since oeeu taken.up by a man i who made but small-wage's oUt of it, working by himselfas a "hatter" for sometime. Latterly he has come to good ground, and he has put two waged men on to work, and he expects thatthe claim will pay Win sixty pounds week between the three of them. There is no doubt, much ground about here which wiil pay handsomefr thorigh it has been supposed to he duflwd- out. The place seems to be a favorite with the Chinese, of whom some forty, or fifty new arrivals pit ia.au appearance last week, making the entire number, fully 100. I fancy they will find the winter here more severe than thev can bear.

Keport says that at last we shali in all probability get; a mail from tao Linburn, as there is a party willing to take the contract at £4l> per annum — a very low figure when the difficulty and danger of the road ar« taken into consideration, more especially during the winter months. Indeed, in some snowfalls during the winter there *ha& been on several occasions snow to the depth ot six and seven feet betweeik this place and the Linbtirn, which has laid on the ground for the greater portion of the year. The sum asked, for the service is a very small one, and one which the Government, in my opinion*, should have rio hesitation in granting.