Correspondence

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 365, 1 October 1868, Page 3

Correspondence

(To the Editor of t/ie Westport Times and Charleston Argus) Sir.—ln last evenings issue of your contemporary way published a thoughtful and very intelligent letter from a miner up the Buller on a most important subject, namely the permanency of the West Coast Gold fields :

He appears to think very naturally that after some years the present system will have exhausted itself, but asks " will that exhaust the gold," to which he answers " no," and instances as many as five <l false bottoms " having been worked through, on some of the southern parts of the coast, and then the bed rock not reached.

The gentleman above referred to, "Diggers Friend" appears sanguine as to gold mining being pursued for ages on the West Coast, but confesses his inability to see by what means, and also states his belief that individual miners can never accomplish it. My own experience up the Buller and on the Coast fully bears out the above opinions. On Eox's, no less than three bottoms were gone through, and the underlying rock not then arrived at, and on the terraces up the Buller, gold is everywhere more or less obtainable, and increasing in a pretty uniform ratio from the surface until the bed rock is arrived at, which ia of course nearer the surface, and oftener arrived at on the terraces in the interior, than on those on the Coast.

The fact is in my mind pretty clear that tho whole of the Middle Island is diluvial or sea deposit, subsequently upheaved by volcanic agency, and while the material of which the island is composed, was in a state of immersion, the gold being of course the heavier body found the lowest level. Nor was the sea in which it was deposited a disturbed one, as most of the layers are in a horizontal position, the subsequent upheaval too, must have been gradual and over a long period, as the same level position has never been disturbed in any of the many claims, I have been underground in. To answer " Diggers friend's " questions, I must say that I know of no means of separating gold from gravel but by the agency of water, and if single individuals cannot effect it, then they must form companies. The course is now I think plain, namely Mining Companies, as in quartz claims, hydraulic power, or ground sleuicing. Fortunately the rivers so numerously distributed on the West Coast, and its peculiar conformation offers universval facilties for these operatious. 1. All the Gold-fields are situated at a very high level. Addisons Flat which is the lowest, and consequently the wettest, has been determined by Messrs Low and Greenwood, in their survey of the proposed line of railway, to be over 250 feet above the level of the sea.

2. At intervals of every three miles or so, large streams occur, abundantlysupplied with water at every period of the year 3. The fall in these rivers is so abundant as to supply as great a hydraulic pressure, within a distance of about four miles on an average, as the Yan Yean now produces at Melbourne. 4. The peculiar formation of the country, is most favorable to the construction of reservoirs, for impounding or storeing water, but in very few instances would the construction of a reservoir be necessary, the supply and pressnre, being so ample, as to enable the expense of their construction to be dispensed with. A year ago, at Brighton, I was engaged by some individuals, who were about to form a company, to take the levels of Fox's river for the purpose of turning on a sufficient hydraulic power to Welchman's, Dublin and the other terraces as the claims became abandoned. The gentlemen engaged in the project, were sanguine of realising a colossal fortune, to use their own words, but supiness and want of capital caused the project to fall temporily

o the ground, bub I have little doubt that it will not only yet be recussitated, but that hydraulic power and ground sluicing will be the means by which the West Coast will yet carry ou its mining operations, and that more will make their fortunes by it than by Auckland Quartz reefing. Tours &c., R. H. Coe, C.E. Mining Surveyor.