ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 153, 13 May 1862, Page 5

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

MOBB ABOUT COEOMANDEL.

To the Editor of the Daitvx. TriCBS

Sir—'Having just returned by the Albatross from Coromandel, and being anxious to let my fellow 1 rninerij. have the benefit of my experience, I write these lines hoping that you will give them publicity I I, with my mates, left a payable claim on Wetherstone's on the 11th March to go to Coromandcl, being induced to do so by the sight of a letter purporting to have been written by a man in Auckland to his son in Otago, and mentioning that 2,5000z. had been just received from Coroinandel. '.

We, with others, took passage by the Canterbury, and arrived at Coromandel about the last day of Mar:h ; but, when we got there we discovered that the whole was a delusion,-if-nothing worse, for there was no payable gold field at all. "With the passengers by thi> Flying Cloud and Briton, and about sJO men who had been pro^pgctjng for Government, there were about 840 of"SCO men. Among the men who had been prospecting we found some whom we knew. Thi3 party (four men) had been working for nine weekg, and Bhowed us, as the resnlt of their labors, 360z."0f specimens of quartz and gold, containing about 50 per cent, of gold, so that their earnings amounted to half-an-ounce of gold a week per man. Theie are poai. tively no payable claims at Coromandel at all; : The ground has been prospected at different times fir years past, and the Gdverrimerit wilt give rations to, any men willing to try it, but none can make it pay. We 'prospected for a week before giving it up.. We tried a paddock, but could not get the color. Other friends of cure sunk three or four holes near Uingfs Mill, but could not get anything, and" they also gave it up. Others who had been working longer told us that if they could only raise a pound or two to get to Auckland they would be ofF. This wan Mu.-phy's party, .the isnme who have been working six or sevfcn week's adjoining Paul's ground (the forbidden ground) and have driven to w* boundary. They have

driven C 5 feet (not 75 yards as reported in the Auckland papsrsyTinrt have: nbi oot.-iincd-two pemiywtiprhk of gold.the wliolt- time. 'I hey imvf only benn driving in hope. _. We. remained" about a fortnight waiting in Auckland "after lenviim t'oromaiidul, Ciid'there wel saw about a hundred other miners who had alt-o left in dfcgiiNt. Mo it of these werfi men poiisg- to Sydney. About forty of tliem had taken their berths- in the Champion." Jt is my impression that the letters thai were put about in Otasroin March last ware part ofn scheme to make a rush for the benefit of interested parties, it has cost me two months time and nearly £30 in money. Trusting that this information may houseful, I am, Sir, yours respectfully, James Pollock. Dunedin, May 12, 1802. ' P.S.—I am at present residing at Griffith's Hotel, and my mates, names ate W. /. Husband and J. Reid. . . -