THE ROPER COUNTRY. (From the Melbourne "Argus")

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 230, 27 June 1872, Page 8

THE ROPER COUNTRY. (From the Melbourne "Argus")

The following interesting description of the country at and beyond the Roper River, in the direction of Port Darwin, is from an authentic source : — " The Roper is on the west side of the Gulf of Carpentaria. It empties into the gulf at Simmons Bight, in lat. 14degs. 45secF. S. It is nvaigable for ships drawing 12ft of water for ninety miles from tho mouth. A bar stops the navigation at this point, but smaller craft, launched above the bar, could proceed up a long way. Just below the bar a river, named the Hodgson, comes in from the south. We sailed up this two miles, and could not proceed further for timber overhanging the river. At the same place another river named the Wilson comes in from the north. We did not go up it, but it looks like a fine river. We established a-depot at the junction of the Hodgson and the Roper ; named it Tocld's Bluff. Plenty offish and game, decent timber, and plenty of vegetation. No hot winds, and tho north-west trades run into the bight, and up the valley of the Roper and other rivers like a funnel nine months out of the year, and I consider this the most healthy situation in the whole territory. Saw large masses of quartz, like snow drifts ; the slate, or sandstone, or whatever it may bo, seems all laid flat upon each other, like stone built into a wall : in fact it does not look to have been disturbed at all. By the sea route the mouth of the Roper is about 700 miles to the south-east of Port Darwin, and is about 300 miles overland, as the crow flies, to the port town — Palmerston — of Port Darwin, from Todd's Bluff. From Palmerston to south Port, at the head of the southeast arm of Port Darwin, is twentyeight miles, and from South Port to the Tumbling Waters, six miles. The tide comes up to South Port, but the Tumbling Waters is permatnent fresh water. Game is not so plentiful at the Port as at the Roper. Did not see any gold, but believe Mr. Darwent's party, got 1£ ozs, in two days on the Katberine, or in its neighbourhood. The Katherine is a large river crossed by the telegraph line at about 120 miles north-west of Todd's Bluff, and had never been explored a mile north or south of the wires. It? source and its escape are both unknown. The .country is good, and game abundant. I believe this will be the best situation, together with the head of the Roper," for gold-making. The river crosses (place ?) at the Katherine. is about 130 miles from So nth Port. The natives are not troublesome. Iho dry

season is from April to December." Tho large river the Katherine, alluded to above, is supposed to be one of the two large rivers believed to fall, the one into" Blue Mud Bay, and the other into the Bay near the Wessel Islands, at the extreme north-west point of the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Private information has also been received to the effect that several ounces of gold from the head of the Roper River have been sent to Adelaide for assay. It is reported to be tolerably pure, and worth about £3 16s per ounce. The finders of the precious metal have forwarded glowing accounts of their discoveries to their friends in Adelaide and in thie colony, and express their conviction that the Northern Territory will ultimately prove a *' great gold-field,"