AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume II, Issue 527, 9 January 1878, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

(PEK EASBY AT WELLINGTON'.) "Wellington, January 8. The Easby, from Sydney, brought only one later paper, the Sydney Aiw-nln-j Herald of 31st ultimo, which contains a letter from Mr. E. H. S. Minton, who has just returned from New Guinea, and in which he expresses surprise at the stater ment of Mr. Beddome, police magistrate, Somerset, regarding the discovery of gold at Papua. Mr. Minton says he has six-

teen years' experience, was a mining en-1 gineer and prospector, and during three weeks at Papua lie explored creeks, prospected the banks of rivers, also at foot of falls and the base of the ranges, and found no gold whatever. He found any quantity of mica, which looks like gold, and which he says would deceive anyone but an experienced miner or prospector. He thinks that Mr. Goldie, being a botanist, was deceived by the mica. Mr. Minton brought sand away from different places lie tried, and had it analysed by one of the most experienced analytical chemists in Sydney, who pronounced it micacious sand of no value. An account of the hailstorm near Albury says cubes of ice, from an inch to four inches thick, fell. The greatest force of the storm was near Hoorwatree (?), a district covered with small farms. The crops were just ready for the machines, and within twenty minutes of the commencement of the storm the entire crops in a dozen paddocks were completely ruined. The straw was cut down as neatly as if a stripper had been at work, the grain being actually battered into the ground. The hailstones in tailing cut notches in the sides of big gum trees, and snicked off ridges of the bark as though an axe had been a work. Iron roofs were penetrated as if they had been brown paper, and shingle roofs were unable to withstand the force with which the blocks of ice descended. The fowls of the air were fain to seek shelter in human habitations, and flocks of parrots took up their quarters during the storm in the houses. Dead birds were strewed around in all directions, some literally flattened out under the lumps of ice. Rain followed, and gullies that had been dry for years became foaming rivers, sweeping away valuable dams, etc. Many farmers are completely beggared.