THE THAMES GOLDFIELD.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIII, Issue 3191, 8 October 1867, Page 3

THE THAMES GOLDFIELD.

To the Editor of the DxrtT Southern Ojaos3. Sik, — I believe it is generally understood by the mining population of this township, that yourself, and your contemporary of the Herald, receive your correspondence from this place from two gentlemen who, in addition to their own speculations, are partners in some of the most promising reefs. The fact that one, or both, of the Thames' correspondents are interested in reefs (one of which, that of your own special correspondent, is described as being inestimably rich) ought to induce the editor of any journal that has the least claim to the confidence of the public to receive their statements with caution. Those exaggerated accounts of rich strikes made at the Thames almost every other day, are only imaginary, and, as I suspect, fabricated for the purpose of Jilliug hotels and boarding-houses at Shortland Town, steamers to and from the Thames, and for the still more selfish object of giving a fictitious value to claims in which the correspondents of the Auckland newspapers happen to be interested. Having thus presumed to question the veracity of statements which, while they benefit a few, are calculated to do irreparable injury to the many, you may very naturally inquire who I am, or why I presume to contradict the seducing fables which every morning attract such, crowds to your publishing office in Queen-street that the doorway is often completely blocked up by the crowd of eager readers that throng to learn the latest intelligence from the new El Dorado. Before visiting the Thames diggings I had my misgivings, but after three weeks spent in fruitless endeavours to discover gold, or any metal resembling gold, in either colour or quality, my doubts are now resolved into certainty. That there is gold at the Thames no one can deny, but that it will require an outlay of more gold to explore the reefs than many of them will ever repay is also the general opinion among the most sensible and experienced of the mining population. If the Auckland capitalists are sincere in the enthusiasm which they feign to feel on account of the newly-discovered diggings, why do they not assist the struggling miners by subscribing capital proportionate to the value of the men's labour, to enable the miners to follow up their researches after their own scanty means are exhausted ? In alluvial diggings the miner could set to work with a slender stock of tools or money, because he could sink a hole in a few hours and perform all his operations single-handed. He cannot do this at the "Thames. Every attempt to discover alluvial diggings has resulted in failure and disappointment, and, out of the 1,500 diggers now scattered over the Thames district, you could not muster 50 provided with tools suitable for the labour of boring or tunnelling mountains of sold stone, and it is only in the solid rock that payable gold has yet been found. I passed by the two shafts now sinking on the Karaka flat by men who are working night and day incessantly, in order to reach the bottom. The men engaged in the work are victualled by Captain Butt, on condition of his being repaid if they find gold in the bottom in payable quantity. Two of the men who were working at the windlass when I passed are the sons of old settlers of this province. They told me the shaft was 73 feet in depth, which would make it at least 60 feet below the level of the sea.; they said they had found specks of very fine gold in every dishful of earth they had tried, as they sank the shaft, and they told me that they looked upon the distribution of the gold in such minute parcicks through the soil all the way down, as a bad indication of a deposit at the bottom. Your lynxeyed correspondents "at the Thames seem to be favoured with extraordinary powers of vision, because they can discover more gold in their short visits to the poorest of the reefs than I have hitherto been able to do by a careful examination of the best auriferous quartz that I could see in Hunt's, Barry's, or Tookey's claim. If I thought, Mr. Editor, that you were capable of prostituting your own abilities to subserve the interests of the commercial gentry of Shortland Town, and their partuers or accomplices in Auckland, I would not have troubled you with this communication. Vulgusvult decipi, decipiatur— " The vulgar wish to be deceived, deceive them" — was the'motto of one of the Roman sages, and, although it was not a very honest one, it is one well calculated to render either editor or correspondent popular with the selfish horde that now are trying to retrieve their broken fortunes, by netting all the machinery of falsehood in motion to decoy passengers to the Thames. As L said before, there are three payable claims on the hills, and there are also three verylikely claims on the township. Captain Butt's hotel stands on one of them ; an experienced digger, named Mulligan, is the owner of the second ; and your fellow citizen, Mr. David Sheehan, is the proprietor of the third. I have no inter-st in disparaging the Thames goldfield. I came here prepared to give it a fair trial. I was disappointed in the expectations I had formed of it ; and now my settled conviction is, that unless the Superintendent, on returning from Wellington, can succeed in inducing the natives to throw open the country for the purpose of exploration in order to find an alluvial goldfield, the Karaka flat will be deserted by its inhabitants in less than three months. ♦ Enterprise No 2,' orher rival, the 'Midge,' will probably, ere the week is out, bring up a coujle of hundred more ounces from Hunt's or Barry's claim; and the Auckland public, as easy to be gulled themselves as they are eager to gull others, will be enraptured with a fresh sample of their undeveloped resources. If they want to form a proper estimate of the value of the diggings, let them reckon the number of men now on the diggings, 1,500 at the least ; the average time that each has been here, say three weeks ; the cost of the outfit that each had to provide, in the articles of bedding, provisions, and tools ; incidental expenses, while here, say £3 : weigh this amount against the number of ounces the steamer took to Sydney to be assayed, and add to it all that the owners of the three prosperous claims have on hand, and the whole would not pay the cost of £700 for miners' rights, passages to and from the Thames, expense of outfit, maintenance while on the diggings, »nd all the unavoidable etceteras which a digger must be possessed of, if he have the means of procuring it, without taking into account the value of the labour. As I feel that my views may be antagonistic to those of a numerous and influential class of your readers, I feel bound to subicribe my name. Bbrnaeb Bbynolds. Shortlund Town, October 5, 1867.