Nelson Gold Fields.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XX, 16 February 1861, Page 3

Nelson Gold Fields.

[FRO3I OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Collingwood, February 7. Things over here are going on pretty satisfactorily. It is believed that some very good claims exist near Lightband's gully. The Collingwood company are in high spirits about their quartz-reef which has certainly turned out some very fine stuff, and appears to merely require the outlay of a small capital to render it available. Devils-hill, of appropriate name, has been an unlucky place so far, though it is to be hoped that now we have some fine weather, the patience of the shareholders will be rewarded with a good return for their very heavy outlay. The Waikaramumu diggings seem to attract more of your Nelson population than tho Aorere fields : this is, however, owing to the overland route via Motueka being now open, as more persons now come by that than by sailing v essels, and the AVaikaramumu being the first diggings reached, many naturully locate themselves there. The AVaikaramumu, though not the richest place, affords perhaps as steady and uniform a return as any of tho others. There arc hundreds of places on the Aorero bide which merely require working in order to yield a cry handsome profit, but the absence of population prevents this, and until wo can increase the number of our working hands our gold-fields will never become of that importance to which they are justly entitled. As to the gold-fields being worked out, it is simply ridiculous to suppose such a thing. It is rather curious that many places formerly neglected and despised, overlooked, and walked over by grumbling hundreds, have now turned out to be really payable diggings. A Coroner's inquest was held at the Commercial Inn, Collingwood, on the 7th February, before James Mackay, junior, Esq., coroner for tho district, on the body of a girl named Mary Anne Elizabeth Avery, aged two years, the daughter of Mr. AVilliam Avery, of Collingwood, carpenter. From the evidence produced it appeared thnt the deceased had been left by its mother in a yard at the back of the house, and that she had not been absent for more than a few minutes, when, on returning to the yard, she missed the child and inquired of its father, who was working in a shop close by, if the child was with him, and on receiving an answer in the negative she looked about and subsequently found it in a well in the yard. Medical assistance was promptly procured, but, although the usual methods for the resuscitation of the drowned were promptly used, they were of no effect. The verdict of tho jury was, " That the deceased was accidentally drowned in a well on the 6th February," and they added the following presentment, "That ! persons having wells should inclose the same, and that the neglect of that precaution is very culpable and clangorous."