THE TADMOR GOLDFIELD.

Press, Volume XXIX, Issue 3896, 17 January 1878, Page 3

THE TADMOR GOLDFIELD.

Nine months ago there was a movement of miners to Nelson, attracted thither by some promising accounts of a limited goldfield on the river Tadmor. For some months subsequently various accounts of the prospects of the place were received, but latterly nothing has been heard of its progress. Recently, however, a reporter for the Nelson "Mail" has made a trip thither, and he furnishes the following description of the locality as it now appears: — As we approached where the men were at work I could not but he struck with tbe great change that had come over the appearance of the place since last I was there in April. The white tents that were then dotted over the flat had all disappeared, and in their place had sprung up comfortable log huts, with their wooden chimneys and bark roafs. Some of these were good roomy buildings, and two or three were surrounded by fenced plots of garden, and the women and children who were to be seen outside the huts engaged in domestic occupations showed that some of the diggers had their wives and families about them. In all there were from twenty-fire to thirty of these huts of various sizes. From our standpoint on a convex bend of the bank we could see for some distance np and down the river, and a busy scene it was, although the whole number of men on the diggings does not exceed forty-five, still from their being divided into small parties of not more than four, each working its own claim, the number appeared to be far greater. Opposite where we were standing was a small flat about the sixth of an acre, some four or five feet above the river. In the face of the bank was j what looked like the entrance to a cave between three or four feet height, and upon asking what this was we were told that the whole of the flat was undermined, the surface being supported by props. This was the i work of one man, who out of this small space had taken a very large quantity of gold. , Farata and party are gradually approaching the boundary of their claim, which they ex- [ pect to have worked out in about six weeks. From them we learned that they are not | doing so well now as they were in the autumn, although, as one of them said, they have not much occasion for grumbling. On the previous day they took out an ounce of gold worth £3 17s, which was not bad wages for four men. A characteristic remark was made by Parata in mentioning this fact: "We got | an ounce in the day," he said, " although we [ took it very easy. Somehow or other we don't 'work half as hard when we are JJnot getting much gold." All the parties at work i appear to be doing fairly if not very well, but I unfortunately, the whole extent of auriferous ground, so far as it has yet been discovered, I will be worked out in three or four months. I " It will be a great pity," said one of them to [us, "if the lead is not traced further, for a better diggings no man could wish to be on, [as we can live here as comfortably aa a man I could wish for 13s a week." It is a very ) strange thing that the gold should be confined to this comparatively small patch of river bed. All to whom we spoke appeared to be of opinion that there must be a lead, which is only lost for a short distance, and yet it has not up to the present time been traced, although attempts to discover it have not been wanting, the flat on the right bank of the river, in which direction the lead evidently trends, having been tried in numerous places, as is shown by the holes whioh have been dug and abandoned. Considering the small number of men who have been at work, the quantity of gold brought from the Tadmor since the discovery was first made twelve months ago has been very large, and the loss of this feeder when it comes to an end will be felt in more ways than one in the tewn of Nelson. That there is a gold-bearing reef in the neighborhood is quite erident from the small nuggets, that are ociisioiially found embedded in pieces of quartz, neither gold nor stone showing the slightest sympton of the -stum oi water, but being am rough and .fagged as though they had just toft the reef.