LYELL AND ITS MINES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6473, 25 November 1881, Page 6

LYELL AND ITS MINES.

’FROM Otm WESTLAND COBBHBPONDHNT,] LYELL, Nov. 15. Lyell is a small township situated at the junction of the Lyell Creek with the river Duller. The only idea I can give your readers of its position is to ask them to imagine a gigantic Y, at the apex of which flows the Lyell Creek, and on one side of which a very narrow street is scarped out of the mountain side, with a row of houses and shops on each tide. So circumscribed is the space that it is difficult to conceive how the township will expand when the population increases as it must shortly do. The sides of the gorge are so steep that except in one or two spots it will be exceptionally costly to out away enough ground to form a level surface sufficient for even the smallest house. The hotel in which I am staying is built entirely on piles, and overhangs the declivity of the mountain. The place is just now in a most lively state. On every available spot buildings are going up, and the population is receiving additions daily. The cause of this is the discovery of new reefs in the Immediate neighbourhood. Twenty mining leases have been applied for since Oct. 1. To show how lively epooulation is it may be mentioned that a week or two ago, a lease was applied for. The next day a half share was sold for £2O, the purchaser of course taking all the risks of the lease not being granted j a few days afterwords this purchaser sold the half of his share, being one-fourth of the whole, for £6Ol People hero talk of nothing but shares and reefs, and everybody who » not actually engaged in mining is out prospecting. It is very difficult not to catch the gold fever. Almost involuntarily if one sees a bit of quurtae on tbo ground» ono pioka it up and look* for a speck of gold. I came across a youth of about four years old the other day, digging very hard with a little toy spade, and I asked him what he was doing. With a look of sublime scorn on his little face, he tamed to me, and said: " Why, prospecting to be sure!" And the tone in which It was said implied tliat I roust be a singularly green qof chum not to know what ho wm doing' without interrupting him by useless questions. , , It is a curious illustration of the way in which minors get into a groove, # that some of the claims recently pegged out w new reefs are within a mile or two of the township of Lyell. dt is well known that m the Lyell creek the largest nuggets over discovered in Hew Zealand were found. The quarts reefs, from which these must have come, art now la process of discovery, and will shortly be worked. There has been some delay in getting them surveyed, but the Qo Z*' amo J‘‘j' have now sent down Mr Young, 0.8., who states that there is three months 1 wor* to do. There is no doubt that thin part of the goldfields has taken a now start. The enormous dividends paid by some of the mines, such as the Welcome, which last month paid 7s, tbo fact that in another mine the reef has just been struck, in another it has been proved to bo belter than was anticipated—-I forbear from mentioning names lest I should be accused of writing,up particular mines—but these things have all tended to give on extraordinary Impetus to speculation. Then again, the main road from Nelson has been completed alter a fashion, and a couple of , buggies have come through. The road is a

wretched affair, and a disgrace to the Government of any civilised country. I cannot think how a Government of a British Colony should over execute such a work ns a Colonial work. It is only wide enough for one dray j it follows every winding of the river i it is metalled by huge lumps of stone thrown on indiscriminately i it u overhung in a most dangerous manner by oiiffs and rooks, some of which must Ml some day or other i some of tho most dangerous fords are destitute of bridges, and it is altogether, at I have said, a disgrace to the Colony. No wonder that the goldfields complain of tho injustice that it done them. They got no railroads, in their stead they get a road whioh would to a discredit to a bankrupt South American Republic, and they are expected to keep this miserable apology for a road in repair I Why the maintenance contracts for this road alone amount to more than four times the total amount of the County rate. People who live on tho Canterbury Plains would find it difficult to form an idea of the expense of maintaining roads badly made at first, and scraped out of the aide of steep hills for almost their whole length. Tho slope of tho mountain side is so stoop that when a portion is out away to mako the road, landslips ooour, often repeatedly for years, at particular places where tho soil is loose and soft. This happens after any heavy rain. It is not the wear and tear of the road, but tho occurrence of these landslips so frequently that makes the maintenaaco so costly. The road is so extremely narrow that vehicles can only pass one another at certain spots where, from some accident, the road ia a little wider than usual, and whore tho vehicle on tho outside can, without much danger of toppling over the precipice, trespass a little on the declivity ot tho road. You may judge how dangerous it is by the fact that the oooohdriver requested-ns to get out while he was passing two out of the three drays we met on our journey. Now ooaoh-drivers as a rule are not very sensitive about any danger to their passengers. (N.B, We nod not paid our fore*.) I need hardly say that Buffer County, like all tho other counties on this coast, is in a deplorable financial condition. What it would be without the gold duty, whioh Mr Seddon so idiotically proposed to remove, no one knows. As it is, it appears from a statement made by Mr Eugene O’Connor here tho other night, that it has liabilities and debts amounting to more than £6OOO. No one who travels through the County can consider that a distriot'so thinly populated, so mountainous, with so little agricultural land, and to utterly incapable of supporting a largo population, should have thrown upon it the charge of maintaining a road, whioh ought to be a Colonial road, if there over is suoh a thing. Certainly, a rood whioh connects Nelson in the north with Oka* rito in the south, and pastes through the most important goldfields in the Colony, .ought to be a colonial road. These West Coast Counties have quite enough to do to make tracks and maintain tho minor roads.

Naturally, wherever a few miners have perched themselves on the side of a mountain, they expect, as they contribute largely to the County revenue, that a track should be made for them. And snob tracks! Circumstances obliged me to pay a hasty visit to a placed called Zalatown, which is situated about 1800 (eighteen hundred) feet above the eea level. It is reached from Lyell by a track, which is fairly good for a mile or two, inasmuch as it leads to the United Alpine Battery. It was made by the County Council quite recently, and is supposed to to bo eight feet wide. 1 say supposed, because it is not really eight feet on the solid, and heavy drays laden with machinery cannot venture on the loose earth at the outer edge of the road. Well, after passing along a mile or a mile and a quarter of this good track (good being in this case, whatever grammarians may say, only a comparative term), we begin to ascend too mountain track. Here ray guide, an intelligent lad of twelve, left me with the cheering information that I had only to follow the track, and I could not miss my way. The track was very steep, and the track was very rough, and the day was very hot, and 1 had a small swag, which would have been a mere nothing on level ground. Still for what appeared to be the first two or three miles I was cheerful enough. Then, for another three or four miles, 1 got dull and slow, and sluggish, and a feeling came over me of despair. 1 thought I should never see the end of the track. I looked down over what appeared lofty mountains; I could see what 1 was sure was Marlborough Province in the distance; I could see laid out like a map below me miles of table land, which itself was spoken of in Lyell as lying at a prodigious height. Then there came a dogged state of desperation, a resolution to plod on until I dropped with fatigue. I was certain that I should be searched for, so 1 felt that I didn’t care. I was not hungry nor thirsty, and I had plenty of tobacco and a box of matches, ana so on I went, until after going what seemed ton miles, 1 emerged on a clearing where a tramway was being made, and Zalatown was in sight. The table land I have mentioned is a remarkable flat situated, I should guess, about six hundred feet above the level of Lyell. It is about six miles long by about two broad. The greater part is covered with mosses, fern, and stunted flax, but at the margins there ie a fringe of very light manuka scrub. The soil is a pure vegetable mould, so soft and rich that a stick can bo thrust into it for the depth of at least three foot in almost any part. I believe much greater depths bare been found in some places. It is formed into shallow terraces, ana, though generally level, is not an absolute flat, so that small parts could bo drained separately with the greatest ease. It is open for selection, and it is surprising, considering the scantiness of agricultural land in the neighbourhood, that no portion has yet been taken up. Drained, with some lime put on it, it would form exceedingly rich land. Considering that vegetables ore almost unpurohasablo, and that milk is ninepenoe (9d) a quart, it would surely pay to convert some of it into pasture land and market gardens. P.B.—Since the above was written, Mr E. T. O'Connor and Mr Blackett have oomo through from Nelson and gone on to Westport. Mr O’Oonnof tells mo that ho baa ridden all the way from Amberloy. 1 defer a few remarks on quarts mines generally, until I get into an alluvial district again.