C—No. 4a.

a general rule that those minors who did leave left a substitute in their stead, who, for the proceeds of the mining interest, made an agreement to retain it for the proprietor should he return within a specified time. I have seen but few instances of a claim of a payable nature being wholly abandoned during the late exodus. The following table shows my estimate and location of the present population of this district. Since the date of my last Report our mining machinery has received some valuable additions. Upon the Manor Burn Flat, Butcher's, Conroy's, and Campbell's Griillys, many water-wheels have been recently introduced; also at the Horse-shoe Bend, Moa Plat, the Island, the Pomahalca Basin, and in some instances, along either bank of the Clutha River, in the Mount Benger District. At Sandy Point the previously existing large quantity of sluicing machinery is about to receive an addition in a large water-wheel, twenty (20) feet in diameter, constructed of great strength, and furnished with an extensive stock of pumping apparatus, including eight (S) drums, a similar number of Californian pumps, and some other additional appliances, the whole costing about three hundred pounds (£300). This machinery, the property of the Albion Company, it is proposed to work in sinking for the main bottom at Sandy Point, the ground over which previously baffled the most strenuous efforts of claimholders with smaller machinery. Another wheel of nearly equal proportions, accompanied however with more limited drainage gear, has recently been erected at Duffer Point, in the vicinity of Cromwell. In other portions of the district, including Baunockburn Basin, some valuable additions have also been made to the previously existing machinery. Isext to water-wheels, which arc beyond a doubt the best prime movers in drainage operations, the most important introduction is the hydraulic hose, which is now pretty generally used in such sluicing operations as possess a sufficient headfall immediately adjacent to the ground in the process of excavation. Where sluicing operations are conducted in the faces of abrupt terrace slopes, the hydraulic hose is regarded as indispensable by miners who have so tested its capabilities, and in many instances I have seen canvas hose carried to lengths varying from eighty (80) to one hundred (100) feet, for the purpose of securing head pressure. Through a tail race possessing a fall of between two and a half (2.1) and five (5) feet to the chain the amount of onr lighter drifts which can be dislodged by the action of water compressed through a hose is immensely in excess of that which can be removed by the open fall method, a fact with which the sluicing community of this district are becoming daily more familiar. Another desirable and indispensable acquisition in the extension of sluicing operations is the fluming of water across the gorges of larger rivers, by means of canvas hose suspended from wire ropes. By these means some of the most valuable ground of this district has been rendered workable, which would be otherwise inaccessible to water supply. The following is my tabulated description of machinery at present in this district. That the foregoing detailed description of the several localities shows a favourable advancement in the working of the vast tract of auriferous ground within this district there can be no doubt; and such as are competent to form an opinion relative to our progress must predict for the future a prosperous increase rather than a diminution in mining operations. Although within the boundaries of this district the natural water supply, where within short distances, is now diverted and conducted to the many sluicing localities contained therein, vet still there remains ample field for the investment of capital in sluicing operations, and I feel confident that when this method of extracting the gold from the great terrace drifts becomes more systematic and general expenditure for the purpose of securing interests in such workings will not be found a precarious speculation. I have, &c., Vincent Pyke, Esq., R.M., J. J. Coates, Secretary of the Grold Fields, Dunedin. Mining Surveyor. RETURN showing the Total Population and their Various Pursuits, in the Dunstan Mining Survey District, 31st March, 1865.

13

THE OTAGO GOLD FIELDS.

STuji: ieb o: Mi OTE In&. .«e: tb B "3 O bD PI o I o Nu: 'ERSi 1ST— ISS is HEK 1 I' | a % ''o O ■m O m O '•B O n h o 3 Localities. tab q 'o E I 2 e j u I 'a do s ft £ O -.. o3 O I o O | Ph O M t-H 1 Ph to a E a M I o' S ! i A: bo I .2 3 bi 1^5 Ph L "1 I •8 s 03 O Ph 3 si a o bb a ■3 m ti I 'Sd o tb s c C3 ab a "Si | o bb Ph 60 d ■a o £ unslaii Proper : Clutha Riyer, including Sandy Point Manuherikia River and Banks Manor Burn Flat Other Localities, including Butcher's and Conroy's Gullies 35 9 97 17 202 no! 74 22 17 I •! 2S 31 8 287 34 233 145 4 JJ '3 15 211 11 15 11 200 15 3 3 5 3 101 12 5 6 25 7 3 545 43 35 26 832 77 2G8 171 35 a JJ 4