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Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume II, Issue 71, 2 January 1864, Page 6

We before intimated that good prospects had been obtained by Warre and his party on the Adelaide quartz reef, West Taieri, and that specimens had been shown us, in which gold could be plainly seen with the unassisted eye. Four prospecting shafts had been sunk, each of which gave evidence of a payable return for working. Since that time, two more have been put down, with increased assurauce of success. fhe quartz is variable in color, full of veins, easily pulverised, and the gold appears to be distributed pretty evenly throughout. The previous experience of the widening of the reef downwards, is confirmed by the last explorations, which have been continued along it for 220 teet. The width at the surface is about three feet, but it gradually widens, until, at the depth of 18 feet, it measures five feet across, and the prospectors inform us that thus far it has increased in richness with the depth; Some beautiful specimens of pure coarse gold were shown us, one weighing, apparently, upwards of a pennyweight, which had been knocked out of some of the quartz. We understand the prospectus of a company for working the reef, will be published in a day or two : and in the meantime a trial crushing is. going to be made, to ascertain the probable return that may be anticipated. Another quartz reef has been discovered by the same party, the particulars of which have not yet transpired.— Otago Daily Times.

Heroism op a Native Woman.—The following instance of devotion, by which the life of a Maori chief was preserved by the act of his wife, at the loss of her own, during the late storming of Rangiriri, is worthy of record. The chief Ngakapa, of the Ngatiwhauaunga tribe, was one of the fighting men in the Rangiriri redoubt, and with him his wife Rangiura, as indeed many other women were present and fell on the occasion, remaining in the rear and loading the guns, while those they had just loaded were being fired by their husbands. During the engagement Rangiura, seeing a soldier level his rifle at her husband, at once, and with the quick instinct of affection, threw herself in front of him, and received the bullet in her own breast. Ngakapa escaped unhurt. This brave woman who thus sacrificed herself for her husband was the daughter of a celebrated chief, To Aioraroa, of the same tribe, the Ngatiwhauaunga.— New Zealand Herald.

Peril op a Black Figurehead.—The Southern Cross says:—We have heard that at the recent storming of Rangiriri, a tar of H.MS. Curacoa being a man of color, as what ship of war is without one or two "darkies," was wounded in the shoulder. As he was proceeding to the rear thus disabled some of the soldiers in the excitement of the moment, and not seeing him very distinctly, with the exception of his dusky visage, mistook him for a Maori. When they threatened to bayonet him he eyed them cooly and said, " What, d— your eyes don't you know one of your own countrymen t*