WAITAHUNA.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 72, 26 June 1869, Page 3

WAITAHUN A.

(From our Own Correspondent.) On Thursday evening, as Mr. Tan--ton, landlord of the Golden Age Hotel, was returning home from Havelock, his horse turned rather short, about two hundred yards beyond the Inverness Hotel, throwing him heavily on the road. I believe he has a severe cut on the forehead, and another over the right eye, besides bruises and a fearful shaking, which confined him to his bed for a few days. lam glad to learn that he is recovering, and can now sit up for a little while. On Sunday, according to my promise, I paid a visit to the new rush I spoke about in my last, and I must say Ithink very little of it. My opinion about it is that it is simply a patch in a kind of half basin, on the top of a pretty high spur. The gullies on all siaeß of it have been well worked, and numbers of holes have been sunk both before this bit of a rush and since. There are about five parties getting a little gold. I tried a prospect from Mr. Carr's claim, and I should judge the washdirt would average between two and three dwts. to the load. The wash is from eight inches to three feet thick, and appears to be of a loamy burnt red nature, and mixed with floating clay boulders. The bottom is a decayed metamorphosed slate and sandy stone. I should not &t all be surprised to hear of a few nuggets being got, although Mr. M'Leod gave me to understand that he had not got a 2^ oz. nugget, as was rumoured last week; that the gold he was getting was scaly gold and very fine. There is a race running round the spur, ana no doubt, with the thicknesß of wash, it will pay those few who have struck gold very well. The depth of sinking averages from 9 ft. to 20 ft., so that it will pay better to paddock the shallow ground than sink holes and drive it out. It appears to run from east to west, and vice a versa. On Monday we were visited by a heavy hail storm, and some very severe i blasts of wind, one more severe than the rest completely blew the whole roof off Mr. Grant's house on the Tuapeka road. At first it seemed as if the house was blown together. A number of miners rushed up to see if any one was within, but when they arrived it appears that rafters and iron had been completely torn from the wall-plates and carried right over. The inmates were unhurt, and busy protecting the things from the wet. Some of the sheets of iron blew along like paper, and lodged a quarter of a mile away. A few sheets of iron were blown from Mr. Coghill's place likewise; and I beileve the coach was blown over on top of the Round Hill ; through the foresight, *however, of Mr. Pope, whose experience prevented him from venturing with the passengers; no one was hurt. That is a most frightful place, and certainly a disgrace to Otago, to say they have been travelling for years and still putting up with a road so fraught with danger.