THE KIMBERLEY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XII, Issue 1726, 5 June 1886, Page 2

THE KIMBERLEY.

The following information relative to the Kimberley gold field is taken from a Sydney paper dated May . 9th :- Official telegrams received from the newly discovered goldfieds m the North-west state that there is every probability of the goldfields turning out a second Palmer. The contour of the country is like that of Palmer ; the gold is of the Bame quality, and the sinking is about the same depth; At present there is no water on the field,'--and it will be most disastrous should a rush take place before the wet season sets m, about September or October. The distance from King's Sound to the diggings is about 360 miles, and it is much further from Cambridge Gulf. The King's Sound track is much tke best, the first 200 miles being over a flat country, well grassed, and fairly watered. There is no animal food to be obtained on the goldfield, the nearest station being 60 • miles away. There were" only about 40 men on the diggings, and the greater number of these had left for the port to get rations ai Derby, which were plentiful but expensive^ The men suffered considerably m their journey to port' for want of food. Some of the party sub- •■ sisted for days on boiled grass and a ~ foal dropped by a mare. Wood is: very scarce, there being no. timber within • several miles of the goldfield. No party should attempt to go to the new field V;r without . being well provided, and each?'/ uian should have at least three horges^ * one for ridit.g and two for packing-,- ■■ When the wet season sets m there will, ny no doubt, be a big rush, as it is expected . i. the field will be a second Palmer rush— -■ gold being got easy, and it is of high value, and nuggetty. Those who are old enough to remember the effect produced m England by the gold discoveries m California, can only Smile at the well-intentioned efforts that are being- made m New Zealand to discourage the Kimberley rush. The people m England knew absolutely noth- '= ing about California, or about gold digging. All that they knew was that immense quahtities of gold were being got there by somebody ; and on the strength of that knowledge they made for California m frantic haste. The E nglish newspapers, and many great publio writers and speakers, did ail m their power to inculcate some notions of ordiuary prudence. They depicted the horrors of the journey, and the frightful . penis at the end of it m vivid colours. But all m vain. Multitudes left their country, never to return, and a vast proportion of them suffered untold misery and came to an untimely end. It was ■ truly a case of the survival of the fittest. The rush to Victoria a few years later, was lust as reckless, though the circumstances were more favourable and the results more satisfactory. — Wellington . Press. ■■■■:.-■ Mr John Pentecost, F.G.S., of the New South Wales Technological Service, • lectured at, Newcastle last month m connection with the Kimberley gold fields, over .which, he recently made an exploratory geological -trip. He 1b reported to have said, m the course of his remarks : — ♦' We . : . . . started again, and this time reached Cambridge Gulf. We found extreme dimculty m landing, aa the bed of ~the< river was one mass of soft slimy mud, on which it would have been utterly impossible to land without sinking over head. We travelled from Cambridge Gulf down to the district known as the present Kimberley goldfield. . . . . But we could see neither grass nor water, only here and there a tuft of. grass, and the rest was for the most part} bare dry ground. . Nearly all the ground round about and m the neighborhood of the gulf is taken up by individuals -and companies, mostly m Sydney. TheDukV of Manchester owns some hundreds of thousands of acres m this direction. We found that when we came to walk through it was extremely difficult; there • being no solid footing at all— nothing but a mass of soft, grey i slimy ground,, and we had to place saplings and hushes * .on the ground before we could possibly pass. The actual region m which gold is situated is about 480 miles from King's Sound, and is something under 200 miles from Derby, lying m a north-, easterly direction. The great difficulty to be overcome is the fact that from King's Sound to Derby water is very . scarce indeed, and, as a general rule, almost undrinkable. There are two ways " of reaching the gold fields— one by the Cambridge Gulf and the other by the Derby route. Bu m going by the Derby route, the great scarcity of water is not '• the only objection, There are hardly any signs of minerals to be seen m" that - direction, but on going- right ud from the Cambridge Gulf the whole way along is rugged and rocky, and the w'lole of that district is considered auriferous. It is exactly the sort oicouotry m wtifch. one would seek for gold, being entirely rocky and covered with a kind of yellow quartz. We only found one speck of actual gold, but we did not seek \t, as our object was to find land suitable for depasturing stock. While on our road we bad a sharp brush with the blacks.