OHINEMURI GOLDFIELD. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Pafroa, Thursday.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2107, 9 January 1886, Page 3

OHINEMURI GOLDFIELD. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Pafroa, Thursday.

There is now a sort of niton geiium in thihihtory of the Thames and Ohineniun goldfields as between the reigns of watei and fire, or in other woids the piedonnn me of the battery and the furnace, and altlio" the cry "le Roiest mort,"' is Lonmdercd hy some to be premature, theie are innn> who, concerning La Monte have loudly Riven the countersign " Vi\e le Koi." Like all mtenegna this piesent tune is a critical one with the futuio of tho held, and a* its failure or success will luvo si t?ie.»t deal to do with the vvelf.ue uf the whole province, it is not aggrandising it fal>uly to discuss it as a matter of piovincial interest. It will not therefore be out nf place "on this occasion, ' as Maccabc used to say, to take a retiosppctne and prospective \ie\v of tho year* I88."i-C>. At this tune last year, as regards depression of the mining industry "the foice of nature could no further go. 1 ' Te Aioha was in a word insolvent, and not a claim wan woiking. At Kamngahake, thtee claims, the Scott, Ivanhoe, and Woodstock, were just kept alive, aud one only, the Crown, may have been aaid to have been at work, and that scarcely paying. At Owharoa, Waitekauri, and Waini, people had been living on faith and hope so long that the only thing tlut appeared for them in the future was charity. Still they had in common with many other mineis learned to labour and to wait, until by-and-bye entered the first faiiv on thp dismal scene— La Monte. With one wave of his iron wand, this 19th century Robin Goodfellow sent the whole of the volatile mining population silver-mad. Amateur assaycrs gave returns of thousands of ounces to the ton, claims were pegged out that were rich in road metal, companies were floated that were to prove Midas-like in their capacity for dividends, and the whole of the field wan a veritable Tom Tiddler's ground redivivtu. Enter theu second fail y, an old man with a face full of solemn humour, and a heathery accent, that bespoke Xoithein Britain and Southern New Zealand. He came, was seen and conquered. The miner took to him as his affinity. Sam Jones, the evangelist says, " I don't know anything abont theology and botany, but 1 love religion and flowers," and the miner analogically says "Don't talk to mo of science and geology, I want to know something about mining," aud so Black drop> the shop and talks to the miner in his own dialect, using such quaint word pictures and homely pinnies as the digger delighteth in. The result of the professor's visit was that miners who previously had but considered the woid "'science" in its relation to the noble art of self-defence were able to talk glibly of bases and salts and back up their ipso dhits by blow pipe and chemical tests reduced to the hieioglypbic symbols of the chemist proper. In a word Professor Black was the right man in the right place. He proved without doubt that precious metal existed in payable yuantit}- on the field, and he showed the digger how t<> use his biains in connection with the piospecting dish in finding out where the metal was. Then, says the casual onlooker, "fortunate Ohinemurian, your reefs are laden, your men have gained wisdom, and your La Monte process is all that can be desired ; what more i» wanted to satisfy you ; surely your cup runneth over ?" But it is not bo. Dirt is not assaying, when sent to the furnace, onetenth of what private tests returned as its value, unforeseen misfoitunes have happened, as they always do and always will, and the aura populaiis has turned right round, and a reaction has set in. It is true that the stone is as 1 ich as ever, that men are making fair wages, and that there is plenty of room for men who have patience and perseverance on the field, but the fact is that both capitalist and labourer have committed a species of moral suicide in expectingtoomucb. Looking the thingfairly in the face, taking evidence without bias, pro and con, the beat and the worst that cm be said is that the industry will pay fair wages to good men at this present timp, and that with due attention to minor detaili, the employing of thoroughly practical mine managers, the working of the titter claims and the taking advantage of the regulations in the new Counties Act concerning the aid to prospecting, Karang.ihake, Te Aroha and Wailii will undoubtedly prove sooner or later three of the mainstays of the province of Auckland. If the batters' and the La Monte furnace will not extract the metal there are dozens of other processes that may do so. The stuff is there, in silver, sulphides, bromides, chlorides, and other compounds ; gold in puri-j naturalibns and m chlorides &c; mercury as a sulphide (cinnabar); lead in the form of galena, also containingsilver, besides arsenic &c &c. In fact outsiders have not the faintest idea of the riches that exist within the Ohinemuri goldfield. Prospectors who have been here from before the opening up of the country, are continually meeting with metalliferous substances, the nature of which baffles them. Black himself says that the Waihi distiict upsets many of his pet theories and, in conversation with the writer, observed that in such countries as Waihi and the East Coast, which ha says is of hot water formation, there is likely to be quite an embarrassment of riches. Nature, it is said, has an antidote for every evil, and as she has raised up a Vogel with such powers of borrowing and reborrou ing, she may have provided us also with a means of solvency in the future in the Ohinemuri Goldfield.