MINING- MONOMANIACS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 284, 10 July 1873, Page 11

MINING- MONOMANIACS.

A correspondent of the Ovens and Murray "Advertiser" writes, under date April 28th :—": — " In your issuo of to-day you speak of a monomaniac who has been driving for a rich lead at Doctor's Grully for six years. I can assure you that the case is not a singular one, and that a parallel for it can bo found at Bright, where a Hungarian has been driving for the Pioneer reef through hard stone for twelve years. He has never used an ounce of powder, and he has carried out the whole of the dirt and stone from the tunnel in his apron. He has driven GOO feet, and still drives on in hopes of finding his hidden El Dorado. Had ho driven in a straight line he could probably have reached the reef in about 250 feet, but whenever he has reached a bar of hard stone he has turned to the right or left, following the softest ground, and then making again for the line from which he had diverged. In this way it is estimated that at times he has made almost a half circle, and broken into his own tunnel again. He lives on bread and coffee, and when he cannot procure these from sympathising friends, he goes out gardening, or doing such work as will bring in a few shillings, and then renews the task he has set himself. Ho is a man like the one at Daylesford, of irreproachable character, and a total abstainer. I could not help feeling an interest in tbe man, as he spoke so confidently in broken English of his one day reaching the reef, and then of visiting his own dear native land."