TAURANGA: GOLD PROSPECTING

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVII, Issue 4455, 5 December 1871, Page 2

TAURANGA: GOLD PROSPECTING

Everything dowo here if* very quiet, and the storekeepera and publi cans are complMaing ot the times. The trut h. is we conld well spare a few of the storokeei'3 until population increases.— Tenders have b.sen oalled for the repairs of a road w'lich has not been used bj any person save- the who made it. The road, through some unaccountable circumstance*, , to Rotorua ia not progressing so satisfactoi *ily as we could desire. There is said to be a . complication ol difficulties, which the Civil Commissionei will have to remove before tlw bridge* art pprmitted to be erected. ¥01* this purpose, Mr. Commissioner Clarke left h* ra onThura | day last la prospeot of the ope nmg ot th< Ohinemuri district for telegraphic purposes, orders have been received from* , nea( * quarters, to Mr. Floyd, Chief .Giectn. cian, to pass another wire from '\ au ratiga to Taupo, a distance of t\bo.ut 120 miles ; this it is said will occ'upjv about three months at the least. — A. gloria overspread the district a few days ago, by the announcement of the death of "Mrs. Robert Kirk, of the Te Papa Dairy Farm, a person much endeared and highly respected by the whole community. The funeral was attended by representatives from every household in Tauranga, who testified in no mistaken language their profound grief at the loss which we have sustained by the departure from amongst us of one of our earliest settlers, and who leaves behind her a kind and fond husband, with a family of young ohildren, to deplore their irreparable loaa. The Venerable Archdeacon Browne read the solemn and impressive funeral service in more than his usual elegant style, whioh I "noticed produced an effect much easier felt than expressed. — Thejaatives round about Waihi, Mataora, and Wnangamata, where the telegraph line is to pass, I are looking forward anxiously for its commencement, inasmuch as Mr. Mackay, when negotiating for the passage of the line, assured them that they were to be employed in some capacity in which their services could be made available. This, to them is a real God-send, inasmuch as the low price of kauri gum is such that they have cast aside that employment, and are prepared for a more lucrative employment on the telegraph line. Mr. Mackays name is the all-absorbing subject round Katikati ; he is being looked to as the Alpha and the Omega in solving the difficulties which, have so long unhappily lain in the way of opening up thi? rich district, whioh is known to contain reefs of richer and much purer gold than has yet been found at the Thames. There are some prospectors here from the West Coast, who came with the object of thoroughly prospectingthe Waihi lauds. Representations having been made to their friends that their going into a district surrounded with native complications and difficulties might frustrate their own object, and also the progress of the telegraph line undertaken so favourably and promisingly by Mr. Mackay, caused them to change^ their original intentions to Kaimai, where it is well known that gold has years ago been found. A report has just reached here, by way of Katikati, that there are a number of Europeans prospecting from the Ohinemuri side in the ranges at Waitekauri and Waihi, with what success we have not heard. However, they are delighted with the prospectbefore them, which has so encouraged them that after getting a supply of stores they again started, with the determination not to return until they have secured their object. — [Cor' respondent. 1