AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 833, 4 July 1871, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN NEWS.

Melbourne, June 20. _ An impostor named Wilson has been discovered near Melbourne, pretending to be the Messiah. The disclosures exhibit extraordinary credulity. The Chamber of Commerce is petitioning the Assembly that in future legislation on banking it will restrict banks to their legitimate business, and not allow them to engage in mercantile transactions. The new Ministry is probably only partially opposed to reduction of duties. A newspaper controversy is proceeding regarding the Queen of the Thames' compasses deviation. The dinner to old Bendigo Mac was a success. A perfect ovation was given to M'Lachlan at the same time. The price of Tookey's stock is reduced by last news. Captain Walker has arrived for examination regarding the loss of the s.s. Auckland. It is oxpected tho Assembly will adjourn for three weeks for the re-elec-tions. The schooner Juliet has been wrecked near Maryborough; crew all saved. Tho directors of the Australian Steam Navigation Company have presented a gold chronometer watch to Captain Pain, of the Macedon, for his services in rescuing the Auckland's crew and passengers. Sydney, June 13. The Rev. Canon Stock was killed by an accident by the upsetting of a coach. Mr Breeza has also died from injuries.

After the end of the year the Government will call for tenders for the Californian line. Members strongly object to American vessels obtaining the contract. A Loan Bill to complete railways and public works has been introduced. Two bushrangers have been captured. Cox is charged with the Wren's Nest murder two years since. M'Mahon is committed for trial for the murder of Jones. The Kail way Loan Bill for £400,000 is passed. The Zaristouski Sisters, actresseß, have been well received in burlesque. The Southern Cross brings a cargo of sugar and barley from Honolulu. The Eclipse was not visible. There is a speculative enquiry for wheat, and prices are firmer. Adelaide, June 20. Favorable reports are received from England as to preserved meats. The French Belief Fund concert was very successful. An attempt to throw the Northern train off the line has been made. A baloon ascent was made to-day by Gale, Lazar, Storo, and another. There are large arrivals of kerosene. I The wheat market is advancing.

QUEENSLAND. From the Victorian Mining Statistics for 1870 we learn that " the average yield per ton from quartz treated in that colony varied last year from about 6-3-dwts at Ballarat to about in Qippsland. The information obtained by the department for the year covered the treatment of about seven and a half million tons of quartz, and the average yield from the whole of this was at the rate of lldwts 4.57gr5." The highest average per ton consequently appears to have been obtained from the Grippslaad district, and is not half that produced from all the quartz crushed at Q-ympie during the last sixteen months, viz., 2fozs per ton. There is every reason to believe that if this district had the same appliances for extracting and saving gold from quartz that are used in Victoria the yield would be still larger. It is therefore with 110 little satisfaction we direct the attention of all to the fact that with the limited appliances at our command, the Gympie reefs are so rich that the yield obtained from them more than doubles the highest average returned by the premier mining colony. Since our reporter last visited the prospectors' claim, .New "West Coast, its holders have continued sinking on the reef, and have been getting up stone with a little gold in it. During the last three or four days a change for the better has taken place, quartz being raised every day containing more of the precious metal than it has done since the crushing—so one of the holders intimated. The owners showed a number of pieces of stone, in all of which gold was plainly discernible. There is a good deal of galena in the stone, and the gold is either mixed with the galena or near it. The holders are now down between 70 and SO feet, and state that they have a reef over two feet thick, and that it gets wider the deeper they go down. It now underlies considerably to the east; the sinking has all along been rather hard. The claim is stilt being worked by day and night shifts, and the reef is evidently receiving a good trial. The prospects of the claim certainly look very promising at present. The owners of No. 1 north are sinking on the reef and are down 41 feet. They have a well defined body of quartz and can occasionally see a little gold in the stone. Since the change that has taken place in the prospecting, a party has made application for the claim No. 1 south, which has been abandoned for some time.

During the last few days the owners of Nos. 7 and 8 south, Monckiaud, have started driving north and south in the levels from which they obtained their crushing. The stone that has already been raised—about thirty tons—is, although not quite so rich as that got prior to the crushing, still first-class, the precious metal being distributed in it. Some very good specimens have also been obtained. In both drives the reef is being taken out from the break to the bottom of the respective levels. It is a good size in the southern drive, which is put in at the 210 feet level, and dips considerably to the south. In the southern drive, put in at the 190 feet level, the reef rises in proportion to its dip at the south end, but is not so wide nor so rich as that end. In fact the greater portion of the stone reduced at the last crushing was got from the south end of the claim. Near to the break the reef is very wide, in some places 10 feet, but it gets smaller goins: downwards. The holders have about two hundred tons of quartz paddocked. At first they simply worked the reef on the hanging wall, leaving a portion of it on the footwall. This they took out and paddocked before commencing to drive. It is poor stuff, and will not yield well. At the end of last week a large body of quartz was struck whilst tho holders were driving eastward at the. level where the break occurs—the 190 feet level, Some short time ago thoy started to drive in that direction to get the Monckland above the break. After driving about forty feet they met with the body of quartz alluded to. From tho fact that they had a flat wall overhead in the drive all tho way, and also a small seam of quartz, some of the holders are of

opinion that the reef they hare struck is really the Monckland above the break. If this be so, it has jumped forty feet to the east. The holders are preparing to open out, having seen some nice gold in the stone. In No. 9 south, whose western boundary comes up to the eastern boundary of, the Nicholl's prospectors, the holders' have started to sink. They are now down about twenty-five feet. The owners of this claim do not expect the underlie of the reef to run out of their claim until over a depth of 200 feet, and believe that they will get the same run of gold that Nos. 7 and 8 have. In Nicholls' prospectors the holders have logged up, erected four posts for poppet heads, paling fly, and smith's shop ; and also have sunk about fiftytwo feet. The sinking is being carried on with three shifts, and is first-rate. Claims Nos. 10 and 11, consisting of twelve men's ground, have logged up, erected a paling fly, posts for poppet heads, and have sunk about twenty three feet. The sinking has hitherto been carried on with three shifts, but as the party have got into Milestone during the last few feet, they will in future work with two shifts. The party anticipate a change in the sinking soon. To the south of this claim a party of twelve have taken up twenty-four men's ground, which they intend to call the Great Britain Company. They are now logging up, and will commence to sink next week with three shifts of men, and also keep on two men to saw timber, &c. On Wednesday last the owners of No. 4 south, Smithfield, got about a" bucketful of very good looking specimens, which were shown to our reporter on Friday. The gold was plainly visible in the heart of the stone. One of the holders informed him that the deeper they were sinking the more the reef improved in richness. They are now down about 85 feet, and intend to sink to a depth of 100 feet before starting to drive. The reef is still composed of a body of quartz and bluestone, with small quartz veins running through it. As these Bmall veins carry gold, all bluestone containing them is paddocked. Since the holders of No. 5 south had their last crushing they have started to sink a new shaft east of their old workings to strike the reef at a greater depth. They are down already thirty feet, and state that they expect to meet with the reef at a depth of ninety feet. A share and a half in this claim changed hands the other day for £6O. The owners of Nos. G and 7 south are proceeding rapidly with the sinking of their deep shaft. They are now down nearly 100 feet. During the last 5 feet the- sinking has taken a change for the better. The holders say it is now very good.^—" Gympie Times," May 24.

THE MORMONS IN AUSTRALIA. (Melbourne Telegraph) Brigham "X oung, we have been told, is casting sheep's eyes upon central Australia as a possible future abode for the Saints when Gentile persecution shall have rendered the Salt Lake dis. trict as unendurable as Sion (Jackson's county) and Nauvoo. Sturt's desert, however, is sarcely likely ever to welcome the energetic apostle, nor will the women of his harem hang up their harps on the wattles of Cooper's Creek. We are tolerable cosmopolitan, only it is necessary to draw the line somewhere and there would be conclusive reasons for drawing it at Mr. Toung, were the rumor anything more than a joke, Our objection to receiving him and his brethern will be easily stated. It is exactly opposite to that which has made us put an embaigo on the Chinese. Our celestial brothers bring too fe# women with them to share their hut and ameliorate their lot, and Mr Toung and his friends will bring too many. Only it may be pointed out that if this impossible exodus were possible, it would have its compensations; we could learn some practical lessons from the Mormons. "What travellers to the Salt Lake dwell upon is not the peculiar institution of that singlar people, but their great success in subduing the wilderness. The Sainta have preserved one of the arts of the heroic age, which we seem to have lost, namely, that of "planting" new countries. "Wherever they have settled they have • transformed the desert into farms, cultivations, and irrigated allotments, capa* ble of supporting large and contented populations. They have no overgrown cities, absorbing the life of the nationplaying the part allotted in fables to the vampire bat. "Where we have one man settled on the soil, the Mormons have ten; and while the real colonist, who comes to build a home for himself and his children, content to leave an inherit ance and not a fortune, is the rare exception in Australia, he i 9 the . common rule in Utah. Altogether we should really be disposed to welcome the brotherhood here right heartily if they would forget their " amiable weakness," as Mr "Weller would term it—leave behind them their Mormoniam, and bring colonising instincts.