ROSS AS IT IS.

Press, Volume XLVII, Issue 7524, 14 April 1890, Page 6

ROSS AS IT IS.

[from our correspondent.!

It is now some eighteen or nineteen years since I visited Ross, or Jones' Greek, as it was then commonly called, at that time one of the most flourishing and busy goldflelds on the Coasfc. Alas ! what a change there is now, what used to be a scene of gold-getting, and money-making, revelry and riot, (for they used to be inseparable on the goldflelds) is all silent, all gone; now, the stalwart diggers, in crowds that used to parade the streets and crowd the bars'and dance-rooms, have departed to fresh fields, some to leave their bones in Northern Queensland and South Africa, leaving no , doubt a few representatives, who nave settled down and made a home for themselves, bringing up their families, a generation shewing much of the energy, determination, and independence of their sires with less of their vices.

What has been a deathblow to the prosperity of Ross,Donohues,and the surrounding district has primarily been the abandonment and now completion of the Mikonui water race by the Government, also the stoppage of the work on the deep levels in the various mines on the field, these mines have Been worked, in places, even to the seventh bottom,-with every probability of as many more bottom's, or rather falee bottoms; below the deepest level that has' been as yet reached, before the main or true bottom' will be touched. These deep levels are all now flooded, the water has command of Boss so far as working the deep ground is concerned, and will have that command until -powerful pumping machinery is placed on the ground. Not a single plant will do this work satisfactorily, but several will have to l;e planted advantageously and worked simultaneously, then we may hope' to see Boss give. 1 up her riches from these deep levels. ::■:'• ; ::;; ;■ -v ■;■■.' ' '..'■■

A large portion of Ross is, you may say, locked up, the Ross United Gold Mining Company, liimited,: holding some three miles of auriferous frontage* practically lying idle unless by a few tribaters, the Prince of . Wales, the . Nennebery, and the Old Turbine Co., and a manor two and a few boys. Of coarse all over BosSj Donohues, and; the surrounding districts there is the usual accompaniment of fossickers* in oat of the way places delving away for alivinsc—the trioaters referred to confining their work to the shallow or top working. In sluicing the Mont DOr commands the pride of place. This Company has paid well from the start, ana have lately bought the Greenland water and claim, a property which would have brought double what they gave, had it been properly advertised in the various colonial papers. A few other parties are doing a little sluicing, when thßy :have water, but a plentiful supply of this necessary element is all the cry, and until this is brought in by the completion of the Mikonui water,race, Ross, so far as her thOßsands of acres of grand sluicing country is concerned, will remain a dead % it » Bn e jtnay have spasmodic intervals of liveliness, but a steady stream of prosperity will never be set flowing until such is done along with the drainage and workIng; of her low lying auriferous levels. lttay have shortly an opportunity of writing you my impression of Cedar Creek and the reefs there, along with an account of Donnelly's Creek Beef, which seema to be looking up just now.