The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, FEBEUAItY 9, 1867.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume II, Issue 33, 9 February 1867, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, FEBEUAItY 9, 1867.

The rush of miners to the Haast river, furnishes another illustration of the capricious character of gold seeking in a countrylike this. Not long ago, the people of Nelson thought that the diggings were rapidly approaching the town, and that the discoveries at Pakihi, Fox's, and the district of the Builer were only the prelude to others nearer home. That this will be the ease eventually there can. be little doubt, iu the mean time it is not a little mortifying to find expectation disappointed just as it seemed on the point of being realised. The whole of the West Coast is destined sometime or other to be a continuous line of gold-fields, and it is as use" less to predict where the mining is to be most permauent, as to complain that it is not fixed in the locality which would suit particular interests. The accounts from the Haast river are not sufficiently explicit to furnish data for knowing whether this extensive rush is justified or not. The gold fever is of so contagious a nature and the subjects of it are always in such a highly inflammable state of mind, that favorable representations of a country at a distance are always sufficient to induce a large number to sacrifice present advantages, whatever they may be. This has been the case on all the gold-fields we have ever beard of, and it is not likely that the present rush will prove an exception to the rule. If we remember rightly the Haast river was struck by the exploring party headed by Mr. Pyke about two years ago. The party was sent out by the Otago Provincial Government, and were instructed to endeavor to discover a road from the Otago Gold-fields to the West Coast. A practicable road was discovered, of which the Haast river formed a part, and sanguine expectations were formed at the time, that communication would be established between the goldfields of that province and the West Coast. The great object of the communication was to retain the mining population as much as possible in the province, and work any new gold-fields that might be found to exist along the newly opened route. Prom the statements in the "West Coast papers, whose writers have paid attention to the subject, it would appear that the Haast is for some distance a navigable river, and that a valuable country of considerable extent may be expected to be opened on its bauks. So little attention has, however, been paid by the Government to the survey of this coast and its rivers, that the information furnished by charts is of a. very meagre kind. It is left to occasional explorers to acquire the first knowledge of the country; captains of steamers, stimulated by the spirit of commercial enterprise, supplement this knowledge by experiment; and the diggers follow, and establish as fact what was previously an uncertain rumor. Captain Tiirnbull, of the Bruco steamer, has pene-

trated the entrance of the river, proved that ifc is navigable in ordinary weather, -and that, once inside, a vessel might succeed in holding her own there under any circumstances likely to occur. At the same time, it is subject to fearful floods, which wash over both spits, and submerge the lower lying banks to a depth of many feet. The diggings are situated on low terraces at the foot of a range of mountains, about two miles north of the river, and also upon a beach terrace between the lagoon and the sea, similar to beach workings on other parts of the coast. The fact that the Bruce has been followed by the Kennedy, Alhambra, Claud Hamilton, and other vessels, with a large number of passengers and a supply of provisions, proves that the discovery of gold there has wrought wonderfully on the minds of the miners, and that, whether well founded or not, their expectations are of a sanguine kind. Having the example of Okarifa before us, as well as several other localities, "where the population, at first large and euthusiastic, has now dwindled down to a feAv hundred disappointed and discontented persons, it would be well for all miners in this district who are getting a living, to pause before they abandon a positive for a speculative good, whose fasciuation is caused principally by distance lending enchantment to the view. The tendency of these rushes at a distance being to unsettle the population everywhere, no effort should be spared by the Government to -furnish every possible facility to the miners to carry on their hazardous occupation. The great want of the couutry, is means of internal communication, and although a great deal has been done in the way of opening tracks and constructing roads on the South-west Gold-fields, a great deal remains, to be done. A few days ago some miners informed us that whilst working on one of the tributaries of the Buller they paid a boatman £10 per week to supply them with provisions. Notwithstanding the great cost of living, their profits had been euormous, so much so that they had come to Nelsou to spend a few days there, after which they intended to go to Australia for a while, leaving some one to shepherd their claim during their absence. That there are rich gold workings near at hand, every miner who has travelled over the country, is fully convinced ; but the difficulty of communication and the great cost of living operate as discouragements to the most adventurous spirits. The people at Hokitika and the Grey are fully alive to the importance of opening up the interior by means of tramroads, for should the population suddenly leave those districts for distant rushes, it will be certain ruin to a majority of the tradesmen who have settled amongst the miners in expectation that the trade would be of a permanent nature. In the absence of facilities for communication with the mining districts, we can only, Micawber like, wait for something to turn up, and hope that fortune which has favored the course of mining in the south, will remove the difficulties which at present impede the progress of mining enterprise in our province.