SUTHERLAND GOLDFIELDS.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 545, 21 August 1869, Page 2

SUTHERLAND GOLDFIELDS.

The Duke of Sutherland paid a second visit to the goldfields, accompanied by Sir Roderick Murchison, who expressed himself as highly gratified with the results of his visit to the scene of the gold diggings in the Silurian system of Sutherlandahire. The distinguished party visited the burns of ICildonan and Suisgill. The Duke on this occasion presented Mr Gilchrist on the ground with a splendid gold watch in recognition of his discovery of the workable nature of the the Sutherland goldfields. The watch bore the following inscription:— " Eobert Nelson Gilchrist, the discoverer of Sutherland gold, from the Duke of Sutherland. November, ISBS." A shaft was sunk in one of the flats of the river side, for the purpose of testing the probable yield, by driving along the surface of the bed rock. The gold was met with at the bottom, but the appearances were not so encouraging as it had been anticipated they might be, and partly from this cause, and partly, it is said, owing to the pressure brought to bear against the shaft system of working on the river flats by the sheep-farming interest, and the high price at which they estimate surface damages, the process of shafi snaking is to be discontinued in the meantime. At first a number of the diggers held off from taking new claims in the expectation of a general permission to sink shafts, and try the flats on the side of the main river, but having been disappointed in this they appear to have fallen back upon tho old Kildonan and Suisgill diggings with renewed zest, so that tho number of licenses already taken for the month of June reaches 100. It is understood that there is no prospect, in the meantime, of a reduction of the cost of licenses, as the present rate is absolutely necessary to cover the expense but there is no reason why the obnoxious Crown Royalty, which is actually a premium to dishonesty and a repressive tax upon lawful industry should not be abolished. The universal diif usion of the gold over the whole district has been proved, and some notion of the auriferous nature of the whole extent of country round the Kildonan Strath may be formed from the fact that the party of the Royal Engineers engaged on the Ordnance Survey of Sutherlandshire have found the gold on the highest peaks of even the highest hills. A number of diggers, chiefly old hands with a previously acquired competency, are leaving, and others are rapidly arriving to fill their places. It is almost certain that there will now be no diminution of the influx of diggers throughout the whole summer; and there is no doubt but that the gold fields will continue to be, as they have been, a very material benefit to the district.