PROSPECTING AT PORT DARWIN

Grey River Argus, Volume XIII, Issue 1627, 22 October 1873, Page 2

PROSPECTING AT PORT DARWIN

1 The following extracts are from the letter of a "practical matter*of-f act man," known to miners in the Grey.district, and who recently visited Port Darwin. They originally appeared in the Melbourne Argus:—: - ' ■ '

"I have escaped fever so far^andl anticipate no danger now. All i want is enough to eat, and I will be all' right. But it is not to be had. Fresh meat and vegetables are unobtainable, .and; preserved meat and biscuits are' very bad tack. If- 1 escape fever, I shall be 1 starved to death here. We dp better, however, up at the reefs, as therejquail and pigeons are to be had Jfor the, shopting, sol will be glad to get up there again. I.returned- on. Wednesday from the reefs, where I had been having : a look round before deciding where to camp. I wonder how they got up such? excitement. ; The people here who circulated such wonder-: f ul reports . have -been- fools or rogu.es —a fair supply of both. It is awfully .overrated j .the Adelaide folks s haye been fairly taken in by thgir own friends. Amateur promoters are very f tmpical goods.' I think, very little of it, and from what I hear from Adelaide, I think they are 'sick' too, sol don't expect to do much good. B— telegraphs to me, ' Impossible to float a cork '—not very encouraging, especially after oonwg tosuch a d-=-d place as 'this. J la . , I have sent a report to Adelaide by^ihis mail, which will not be very agreeabl®|to holders of shares. There is not a. single claim here justified in erecting machinery ; all the claims could not keep one going. They have ten on the way up. There ,is not sufficient work done yet to ' condemn it as a gold-field, but there is far less done to commend it. There ' is a fair surface shovv in a few- places ;. two feet is about the deepest shaft sunk. In one or two places at, Yam Creek they have if bllowed a smairieader down about 10ft, whicn, as it gets into hard country, looks very like pinching out — too much sandstone about. I have seen no reef yet. They are trying to prop it up, but I think when the various companies have to commence working, they will be in most cases sadly

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