THE NORTHERN TERRACES.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 714, 22 September 1870, Page 2

THE NORTHERN TERRACES.

(FBOM OTTE OWK COEEESPONT3EKT.) Call me no longer your " circumcavarambulating correspondent." It is too much. Call me—O, call me—- " your own." " O'erstep not the modesty" of the fact. And the fact is that my " day on the Terraces" proved a " duffer." It was well that I lingered on the track, inditing comments on cockles, sermons on sand, puffs on each public-house, aud something on everything. Else, "story, G-od bless you, I'd have none to tell." On the morning of the second day the rain fell as the sun rose. It pursued this practice throughout the day, in proportion to the amount of rising done by the sun. It also fogged. The circumstances were decidedly unfavorable to a free exercise of the fancy, or to hi-falutin.' Expediency suggested a flying survey of the three contiguous terraces —Caledonian, German, Giles —and it now suggests a mere matter-of-fact report of what was heard or seen. THE CALEDONIAN. Bald Hill is the natural and appropriate starting point for such bald narrative as that which I now only undertake to give. It is more visible than readily accessible from the Caledonian township, as the Ballarat Creek intervenes, and it is a creek which partakes considerably of the character of a chasm. This hill may be said to be the southern terminus of the terrace workings to the north of the Buller, but its name is more associated with prospecting thau with actual production. Between it and the Buller there are several other terraces having neither name nor sponsor, and although their situation and formation would dispose one to believe that they are equally auriferous with others to the northward, they have been but slightly prospected, or, if prospected, without permanent result. Upon Bald Hill itself a trial was made a year ago at a cost of £4OO for " tucker" alone, exclusive of much hard work, but Fortune was capricious, or funds and hopes failed at the critical point. To judge from its contiguity to the ancient out let of the Butler, this hill or terrace should have richer beach deposits than any of the terraces northward. An explanation of their absence or their non-discovery may be found in the fact that the beach' deposit does not appear to have been here over-run and protected by that mass of glacial debris which is so marked a feature of all the terraces further north, commencing at the Caledonian.

Ballarat Terrace, so protending in name, is extremely unpreteuding in appearance as a scene of industry or population. A solitary canvas-covered but belonging to Messrs Wright and M'Kenzie represents its once more numerous inhabited buildings. Living thus in the enjoyment of tbe entire underground working of the terrace, Wright, one would imagine, could scarcely ever go wrong ; but probably quality of ground, more than mere

quantity, is the consummation most devoutly wished for. Beneath them, on the lead which lies seaward, Lowther and party have commenced to ground-sluice, and when they _ have brought in their second race from Coal Creek, they may be expected to effect a considerable change both in the appearance and the productiveness of the locality The race has been constructed for a distance of Ave miles, and will probably be in full play this week. With water sufficiently abundant and cheap, considerable portions of the Caledonian Terrace might prove equally payable under the sluicing system, and it might be a question with the capitalists of "Westport whether the maintenance of the town as a digging depot would not be best encouraged by investment in such works as water-races.

Ballarat Creek, which is said to have produced as much gold at secondhand as the hill, has now itself become a second-hand creek, employing not half the number of men it at one time did. The highest claim is held by " Old Dan,"' who, with one of the gentler sex |and a boy as his mates, works away in the cold slitwlo of the creek with as much spirit as if the sun of the heavens and of prosperity was perpetually shining upon him. Below his holding, there are four flood-boxes, and some five or six men striving and struggling among the shingle and boulders at the bottom of the sunless chasm—with sufficient reward, it is to be hoped, for their solitude and seclusion.

The Caledonian township, which at one time extended to the edge of the precipice overlooking Ballarat Creek, has now collapsed into a small group of buildings at the northern end of its once moderately cheerful street. Thpse are, with few exceptions, stores, and even as stores they must he numerous enough, if not too numerous, for the requirements of the district. The casino, the billiard-room, the bar, and the fat fair ones of forty summers that are usually numbered among the institutions of digging townships are no longer represented. The inhabitants apparently give all their attention to the actual business of life during the day, and of an evening, fatigued with their exertions, cultivate melancholy by playing the concertina, or, taking a hot grog, go to bed. No doubt it was under the influence of the concertina that a local resident thus described to me the prevailing conditien of things: " Tes, sir, the Caledonian is still presided over by that flaunting flag of liberty, the British ensign. [He referred to Mr John Braithwaite's Union Jack, but that's of no consequence] It seems the last remnant of prosperity, don't it? Dull is its street. Done are its music and dancing halls. The seraphic strains of the cornopean, the viol, and the clarionet are no longer heard, nor the thunder of a darn'd old drum that used to make the drunken ones to dance, and the sleepy ones to swear till past the witching hour. The voices of its singing men and its singing women may soon be heard no more." Having some conception of the tortures arising from the midnight musical tendencies of the inhabitants of a mining township, I meekly responded "Amen."

The Duke of Edinburgh Lead is the name given to a lead of gold a short distance seaward of the township. The four ground-sluiciug claims of the terrace are confined to this Lead, which skirts the front of the Caledonian, and extends through the intervening spurs almost in a straight line to German Terrace. Each of these sluicing claims is understood to be paying fair wages. Purilett's claim, at which a fine young man of that name was unfortunately killed quite recently, is no great distance from the Caledonian track. Campbell's is a claim on the Hatter's Spur, between the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prospector's Creeks. Bannerman and party's is on Cornish Point, between the Caledonian and German Creeks ; and D. Barrie's party take up the same run on German Terrace. The chief objection to ground-sluicing on these terraces is the limited supply of water at command. Thus limited, as it passes out of the tail-raceo of the sluicers, it is occasionally of the consistency of cream—or, as a Scotchman would say, of " sowens " —and that is not a condition altogether favorable to the creek-washers, or to the proprietors of the score of flood-boxes which are to be found in the neighborhood. With a larger water-supply, the interests of both classes of surface workers would be better served. Of course every interest has its own particular grounds for a grumble, and one is that the narrow tunnels which have been put through the spurs to straighten the the course of the creek, while they would have been a benefit had they been larger, serve only in time of floods to filter away the water, and leave the debris to obstruct the future working of flood-boxes. So say some of the Noahs of the district—those who build boxes in anticipation of a flood. From the township northward, a tramway serves the purpose of a track, as well as its proper uses of supplying the miners with timber and the townspeople with firewood. In the absence of the track which should along these terraces, it is a convenience, and, for one of its proper uses, it is to be made more convenient by being extended about half a mile further north, as the claims at its present terminus are nearly all worked out. Only one tunnel—that of Hopkins and party—opens into the head of the Prospector's Creek. Then Stuart's empties

into a creek without any distinctive name. And beyond are the tunnels of Albert and Strange—two parties who have lately had experience of that remedy for grievances which is sometimes worse that the grievance itself—litigation. From a point immediately beyond the Caledonian Creek, a new tunnel is being driven towards a back run of gold which is supposed to be of some value. With this exception, the working tunnel claims on this terrace—eight or ten in all—are said to be paying from £3 to £&, for each man, per week. Berlin, the capital town of German Terrace, when I formerly visited it r was "on the spree," like its great original. On this occasion it was different; and a sober account of what is being done on this Terrace will given in your next number.