THE GOLD FIELDS.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 646, 11 October 1851, Page 3

THE GOLD FIELDS.

[From the Bathurst Free Press Correspondents.] THE TARSHISH DIGGINGS. The following highly important communication has just been received by a gentleman in town from a friend now sojourning at the Tarshish diggings : — My Dear Sir, —I have much pleasure in congratulating the good people of Bathurst

on the fact of their having an extensive South Western Gold Field on the Abercrombie River. There are now 40 persons at work, earning from 7s. to 10s. per day each, and I have no uouot wnen the waters subside the river will prove highly auriferous. The geological structure of the country is highly favourable to the production of gold, and is of great extent. You are therefore quite correct in your statement to me a short time ago that the next gold field of any magnitude would he discovered on the Abercrombie river. The place has been visited by Mr. Hargraves, the gold discoverer, who named it “ Tarshish,” as you see by the heading of my letter. The diggings are situate 20 miles S.E. from Carcoar, about 17 miles from Mulgunnia, 50 miles from Bathurst, and 70 miles from Goulbum. I procured 115 small scales of gold in a pan of earth. Its general distribution through the soil is favourable to industrious miners. A good hand will earn £1 per day in the bank of the river. Tarshish, September 9th, 1851. THE TURON. [From the Herala Correspondent.] September B.—l went to-day up the river as far as the mouth of Oakey Creek, and stopped at Mundy Point, where diggings which have proved more prolific than any others have lately been discovered. There are about twelve parties on the point, which is fully occupied, and the success of some of them has been truly astounding. Hume’s party of seven procured 6lbs. 7 ounces of gold on Saturday ; and Blakefield’s party who are working the next hole, realized £3OO last week. These diggings are at the base of a high hill, and after digging about seven or eight feet down you come to the working stuff, a quantity of large stones and clay amalgamated together, and forming a hard, solid, and compact mass, almost impenetrable to the pick, and very difficult to be got out. The tops of the holes are full thirty feet above the level of the river, down to which the working stuff is conveyed in long bark shoots, placed against inclined planes. The number of people congregated’at the junction of the Oakey Creek with the Turon and for a considerable distance both up and down is truly astonishing, and I certainly believe there must be at present full six thousand persons on the river and tributary creeks. Woodward’s hole, at the Golden Point, is still turning out well ; he obtained thirty-two ounces from il’ou Saturday ; and on Sunday was oblige ! to watch it nearly all day day to prevent the boys from stealing the earth by handsful. There was still a great number of persons doing little or nothing, running about in every direction with shovel, pick, and dish, hoping sooner or later to fall into a good spot somewhere or other. That a great many persons are realising an independence is an undoubted fact, but the number who are slaving for barely sufficient to keep them is very great, and that number is daily swelling.