WELLINGTON NEWS NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9184, 13 October 1888, Page 5

WELLINGTON NEWS NOTES.

[BY TELEGRAPH. —OWN CORRESPONDENT.] Wellington*, Friday. MOVEMENTS OF MINISTERS.' The Hon. Mr. Mitchelson returned to town last nighb by train. The Hon. Mr. Hislop returned from the South to-day in the Wairarapa. The Hon. G. F. Richardson returned from Marlborough goldfields this afternoon by the s.s. Rotorua. The Hon. Mr. Fisher has left Christchurch on his return to Wellington, where he is expected to arrive to-morrow night. RAILWAY DEPARTM KNT. The Minister for Public Works (the Hon. Mr. Mitchelson) appears to have had his hands full of deputations. On his return I trip from Napier the clamour to use timber (firewood) for locomotive fuel elicited a refusal of such a concession on the ground that for such fuel locomotives would have to be specially constructed. There are 15,000 acres of good sheep country closed for a reserve near Woodville, and the Minister was asked to open this for settlement. The matter was referred to the Minister for Lands. Retrenchment.it is said, is to be further promoted by running only two trains from Napier to Woodville, nn night passenger trains running further south than Waipukurau. Of course, when the Gorge line is completed, this arrange-, ment may have to bo altered. The Minister for Public Works says that it will take three years to finish the tunnels in the Gorge, and that the section from the Gorge to Palmerston, and from the Gorge to Woodville,will be finished before the tunnels are done. NATIVE DEPBKEJIEXT. In his capacity of Native Minister, the Hon. Mr. Mitchelson interviewed several natives in respect of a piece of land required by the Government at Ngawapurua Bridge, over the Manawatu River, but I understand the proposed arrangement is one that will require to be approved by the Cabinet. THE MAHAKIPAWA GOLDFIELD. The Minister of Mines was courteous enough to show me to-day a number of nuggets and some quartz reef specimens that he had brought with him from the now field. The nuggets were five in number, all pure crold, without any admixture of quartz or other foreign substance. The smallest was about the size of a pea, the largest as big as a good sized bean. The Hon. Mr. Richardson said that these were not picked specimens. They were, as a matter of fact, the ordinary nuggets that were being found in the creek. They have a waterworn appearance, the piece of stone is white crystaline quartz of the ordinary character, showing fine gold on the surface, bub not, I should think, very rich. Still it is rich enough, if it could be got at in sufficient quantity. In answer to my question whether he thought there was payable gold there, the Minister answered in the affirmative, but he believed the I area would be found to be somewhat circumscribed, so far as the field is at present open. Miners have to work under very great disadvantage. They are in what is known as "Yankee Gulch," great masses of foliated schist forming precipitous banks on either side of the creek, which is serpentine in its course. The great difficulty at present is to get stuff out. There is no difficulty of this kind that money will not overcome, but that is the question, and in these retrenching times I fear there is no very favourable answer to it. I could not with propriety trespass upon the reserve of the Minister as to the action which the Government would take. I know as a fact that surveyors are engaged laying tracks, and that Mr. Seymour, the member for the district, had an interview to-day with both the Minister of Public Works and the Minister of Mines, and I believe with the Premier. I gathered, however, during my interview with the Minister of Mines, some interesting particulars. This nuggetty gold found in the creek does not appear to have come from any particular reef, but is the product in time of some cataclysm, caused by glacial action. The height of these hills is between 2000 and 3000 ft above the sea level, and I hear that there are auriferous reefs in them at a very high altitude, but the reefs In which many of the miners are now in quest of lie below the bed of the creek. The glacial action spoken of would appear to have cut through the reefs in the higher levels, and the deposit of this nuggety gold in the creek was the result. So far as I could understand the actual position is this : Gold there is in the new field beyond all doubt, and a good deal of it, but the field "shows up " at present within a very limited area. The real question is not whether there is gold there, but whether it will pay to get it out. Gold will in time get at gold in spite of all difficulties, but the word "now" governs the solution of the problem.