LIVINGSTONE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1032, 11 August 1879, Page 2

LIVINGSTONE.

(FROM OUR O"WX COKKESrOXDENT.) * August 9. A meeting of the Mining Association Committee was held on Wednesday evening. Mr. Roberts occupied the chair, and there was a full attendance. The meeting was convened to consider correspondence from the Minister of Mines department, relating to the application of the Association to have the river declared a watercourse for the discharge of tailings, <&c.. under the Act known as " Shepherds' River Pollution Act." This matter, I understand, is likely to be the subject of another memorial from the miners here, on the re-assembling of the House. A i copy of Mr. Warden Robinson's report ] (which had been received through the courtesy of S. E. Shrimski, Esq., M.H.R.) was also read to the meeting. It was on matters he was instructed to enquire into and report on by the late Minister of Lands, immediately after the close of last session. A good deal of dissatisfaction was expressed at the apparent bias of the writer —some facts being misstated, whilst others, which would have had a tendency to further the interests of the goldfield, were suppressed. The Committee decided unanimously to apply to the Minister of Mines to order another inquiry tobe made, andgetareport furnished by some other Goldfields' Warden. It seemed to be the general opinion of the Committee that Mr. Robinson, if not positively antagonistic, has been at least unfavorably impressed towards the field from the date of his fix-st visit, and certainly some clauses of his report fully bear out that view, in anticipation of which the Committee instructed flu.Secretary to procure all the data he could. Your readers will probably recollect that when Professor Ulrich visited the Maerewhenua in January last, he expressed himself as confident that richer leads than any that had yet been wrought would ultimately be discovered in tho quartzose grit nearer the mountains than the present workings, consequently nearer the matrix from which the gold (deposited in the various alluvial drifts) originally came. There is therefore strong probability that prospecting in this direction would result in a new and highly auriferous addition to the present working, and would be likely to lead eventually to the quartz reefs comprising the source of the later alluvial deposits. Prospecting in this direction would, however, be both tedious and expensive though the result would probably justify the expenditure ; miners would engage in the work much more heartily and energetically had they some outside assistance such as is afforded by our neighboring County Council. The Maniototo Council have for some time past been subsidising prospectors with such a weekly sum as just finds them in " tucker they are thus able to continue their search for undiscovered deposits of the precious metal much longer than they could possibly do in the majority of cases if wholly dependent on their own resources. I submit the idea for the benefit of the Waitaki Council as worthy of their favorable consideration, as a cheap way of providing for a portion of tho unemployed, and at the same time developing the resources of the County. We have a part of Mr. Barron's (of Naseby Survey Office) staff here for the purpose of surveying land for settlement, so that an increase in the population of Maerewhenua is looming in the distance. We had a taste of the larrikin element on the evening of Mr. Gilbert's lecture, of which I wrote in my last. Some members of that genus, whilst the lecture was being delivered, rang the bell, and then quietly locked the schoolroom door, whilst those who were inside were listenin rapt attention to the lecturer's graphic pictures, and when they rose to go to their homes behold the door was fast, and they had to put a boy out through the window to liberate the rest of his fellow prisoners. My remarks would be incomplete without a word about the weather. For some days it has been very mild, and quite enjoyable, and those who are still (as the water is not yet in) unable to work at their claims, are taking advantage of it to get their gardens in order for spring planting and sowing.