THE BULLER AND LYELL.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 455, 21 January 1869, Page 2

THE BULLER AND LYELL.

NOTES OF A PROSPECTING PARTY. Chapter 2. The number of miners here is very fast increasing. Scarcely a day passes that does not bring some new arrival. Several who have been worked out on Addison's are now prospecting here. Two of them have commenced operations in an abandoned tunnel up the Lyell, as they believe that the first parties knocked off too soon, which is very probable. The parties engaged on Manuka Flat, (which is situated on the bank of the .Lyell, about four miles from its junction with the Buller,) have found that they are again too high, and have eommenced driving in another tunnel on a lower level, a t which they have made good sanguine of success, as they will lose all their labor if it should prove unprofitable. They are backed up by store-keepers who provide tools and " tucker," the miners themselves giving their labor. This is the third tunnel into the flat. There are not more, as far as I can ascertain than about fifty men at work on the Lyell proper, as the ground is very patchy, nuggets being principally its yield. Very little coarse or fine gold is found there, and one may be a long time at work there and get nothing, but one day's find may remunerate for all their lost time. Consequently it does not suit men without means. Slate and quartz abound on the Lyell, and all who are at all acquainted with it are fully persuaded of the existence of rich gold-bearing quartz reefs there. Of this there is every indication, the slate being of a peculiar soft blueish description in which gold is generally found. There is only one party here who is giving it any attention ; they are occupied in alluvial mining, and occasionally devote a little time to searching for a reef.

There is no track made up the Lyell, so getting provisions along, especially in wet weather, is something so excessively undesirable that few will attempt it who can help it. This is a very great cause, indeed almost the only cause, why the existence of a quartz reef is not tested. Verily the Provincial form of government is a paternal one.

There are several parties supposed to he working on the quiet up the gullies of the streams tributary to the Lyell, and are believed to be doing well, but the information I have respecting them is as yet too vague to send you, as unreliable news in the columns of the Westport Times might lead many a poor fellow astray, and

procure for this child a very striking reason to the contrary, so that you see I have many reasons for being very guarded in my statements. The'qualityofgold on the Buller banks or rather terraces along them, and the mode of distribution, differ very materially from the Lyell. Coming through the gorge below the Inangahua the principal rocks are igneous, and granite rock, with occasionally conglomerate and a bastard yellow clay slate fractured in all directions, and at the surface but little traces of lamination. In one place near the Blackwater, sandstone rock presenting good building beds and faces exists, and I have no doubt overlies, as usual, a coal formation. Indeed coal has been discovered somewhere about here, but ' I have not seen it, Above the Inangahua the rocks are pretty nearly the same, only that conglomerate and sandstone are absent, and the slate formed is ofablueish color, and shows more traces of being laminated, which will of course be found to increase as they are worked into, which I have no doubt will one day be the case. The gold found in the Buller terraces is generally fine and more regularly distributed, now and then coarse and scaly. Much of it is lost from the mode of saving, plush or copper p'ate uever, as far as I can learn, being resorted to. and falsebottoms are the only means observable on any of the diggings. From the Hawk's Crag upwards, or the Biackwater, which is within a mile of it, gold is found in every terrace ; of course, in many it is not payable, and in many places where it is payable, it is not worked from the difficulty of getting water. The country is greatly broken, and the terraces, though numerous, are of limited extent.

There are some parties making as high as £2O a man per week, while many others are only making tucker and current expenses. I know of none who are not doing that, and between those two points, the others range from three, six, eight and ten notes per week. " Dublin Jack," who recently paid you a visit in the Buller, has about one of the best claims here. James G-lass and party, about half a mile above the Lyell junction on the south bank, and William Beattie and party, about half a mile below it, are doing very well also, as are many others " too numerous to mention," as Mr Munro would say. Prom Westport to the Lyell there is no track on the north bank of the Buller, and from thence to its source there is no track on the south, so that to prospect properly you need a canoe, and about three months' "tucker," and to any practical miner thus furnished I say that finding payable gold on the Buller is a certainty. There cannot be less than about three hundred men now on the "Upper Buller, and from the quantity of business done in the Lyell junction stores of a Saturday and Sunday, you would say all are doing well. Ho»vever this is not the case, as it never was on any diggings yet. We had a shower of rain last evening, which is the first that fell for a fortnight. This is bad for the storekeepers, as many cannot wash up for want of water. Dr GHleB is expected up here today. It would be a great boon indeed if his visit led to something being done towards the track.