THE BULLER RIVER.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 465, 13 February 1869, Page 2

THE BULLER RIVER.

(from otje own corresponded.) The small rush which occurred last week at the Maori Terrace has caused much more excitement than it warranted. About six claims occupied the whole ground. It is certain that they are good, and will pay on an average about £ls to £2O a week per man, when working, but they must remain for some time idle for want of water. There is also much ground now in the same state, and any men now coming up must be prepared for a few weeks' idleness until the rain set in. There is plenty of ground, but little water. We understand that a party are commencing to bring in the Eightmile Creek to the new rush, as well as to other ground. This will be a great boon to the neighborhood, as a good many claims are now, and have been for some weeks, lying idle for want of water • and still the population keeps on increasing. If water was abundant there is certainly plenty of room for them all, and more, but without that necessary article new-comers must be prepared for some idleness, and the demand now upon the stores is so great that the} will not find it so easy to be accommodated as it used to be, when the population was not so numerous. We are hoping that the new Water Company, who have engaged Mr Coe's services, will not be long in setting to work. As they are all practical men, it is hoped that no unnecessary delay will occur. The principal workings here are between the old diggings and Fern Flat, the former about nine miles below the Lyell, and the latter seventeen miles above it. The party of six mea who are tunnelling on the Manuka Flat are, I am sorry to say, getting disheartened. The driving is long and tedious, and they see good ground in the neighborhood being taken up, and naturally they are getting impatient. They are now about two hundred feet in in the new tunnel, and have not yet struck payable wash-dirt. A party from Addison's Flat have taken up ground in connection with an old abandoned tunnel there. They are very sanguine of success, and c.ertainly we wish them good fortune. The population must now be at least fivo hundred here, and if it keeps increasing in the same ratio that it has done for the past few weeks, there will very soon be about a thousand people on the ground. This is rather a startling number to be left unprotected, bat f rtunately there are but a very few females, and John Barleycorn's potent influence appears to set everything quiet, as most unquestionably it everywhere reigns. They say that it is a good sign of diggings to see drinking going on, and, if it is, the Buller diggings will stand second to none that I ever saw. Mrs O'Brien is about getting up a dance-house; a bakery has this week been built; a new hotel and drapery store have been established ; and, best of all, and very well patronised too, » bookseller's establishment has been opened, though it is now being competed with by the enterprising and indefatigable Addison's " Charley," who at ths start elicited general applaud and esteem, as he is as well- ,:UAI " he is generally known x 1 Up the Ma*-- v ~!; uln the ground continues -»-- jU » and tne population is Biasing. On the Inangahua, about thirty

miles from the Buller, a good Bam pie of gold has been struck in sandstone cement. In bringing in the new water-race there will be a splendid opportunity for testing the nature of the slate and quartz strata of which the bed of the Eight-mile Creek is entirely composed, and I understand that Mr Coe, the surveyor, is determined to embrace it. Unquestionably the gold of the neighborhood has come somewhere from the interior, and the determination of its precise locality is simply a question of time ; and you may be sure that the Westport Times will be fully and faithfully advised of any new feature in the neighborhood. By the bye, do advocate the necessity of something being done to the track from here to Westport. Men are now every day on the roa<*, and to a tired pedestrian, with a heavy swag, dodging under fallen timber, creeping over dangerous slips, and fossicking one's way through a growth of underwood on the borders of a precipice are not very pleasant. It is all very well for Dr Giles to call it a good track, and, if I had a pleasant companion for the good parts, and a canoe with a couple of men to take me over the bad portions as the doctor had, I should certainly call it a very good track too ; but circumstances materially alter cases.