NEWS AND NOTES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume IX, Issue 1729, 15 September 1887, Page 2

NEWS AND NOTES.

A quantity of correspondence is held over owing to pressure on available space.

Taranaki Hospital Board has reduced salaries by the amount of JE9I.

Owing to the train arrangements, Major Atkinson's meeting at Eltham on Friday will not commence till 8 p.m.

The Stormbird arrived at Onehunga at 10 a.m. on Wednesday with the cattle and sheep all right. She experienced very hard weather.

We are inforineil that a gentleman leaving Manaia and going to Picton desired to take his buggy and pair of horses with him from Manaia. After enquiring the cost by railway via Wellington he ascertained that the cost would hp jt'l2. He also enquired at New Plymouth and ascertained that the cost would be £G. Naturally he decided on taking the halfprice route and chance his buggy and pair being detained a week at New Plymouth.

The Advocate 6ays tbat an almoßt miraculous escape from sudden death occurred to a well-known resident of Bangitikei at tbe Marton borough southern boundary on Friday afternoon. He was driving to Crof ton, and his trap was run into by the 1.39 tram from Wanganui at Henderson's Crossing. The cow-catcher caught the near wheel of tbe trap, and trap, horse, and driver were 6ent flying j n the twinkling of an eye. The horse and driver escaped uninjured, but the trap was smashed to "smithereens." Had the accident occurred a small fraction of a second sooner, the driver and horse would almost certainly have been killed.

We (Wellington Pr^ss) fear the reports which have been published during the last week or two, of a peculiarly rich find of gold at Hikutaia on the Coromandel Peninsula, are apt to create false hopes. The truth is this is no new discovery, but merely a re-di6covery, or rather, the republication of a discovery made long ago. Unless we are greatly mistaken, this wonderful reef, said to show in the face one third of bullion to two thirds of stone, is the same curious but disappointing formation which is fully described in the Official Report ol tbe Geological Department in 1870. It is not properly speaking a gold bearing reef at all, but merely a large barren reef of white quartz, rising to a considerable elevation and bearing on its summit or peak a mass of rock, evidently volcanic, and not connected geologically with the reef itself. This inas3 of rock or ash, or both, for it is a great mixture, is full of free gold, or gold and silver alloy: and running through it are black veins containing silver in a very unusual form. Unfortunately, however, there is very little of it, and what there is does not by any means fulfil the lavish expectations which the " specimens " are calculated to create. It is singularly patchy and capricious; and though it would possibly pay to work it under favorable conditions, there is only a very remote likelihood of its being found to oontain any really considerable quantity of tbe precious metals.

Dr. Speer, medical specialist, of Wellington, has a new announcement in this evenings paper.