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New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4142, 30 June 1874, Page 2

The Marlborough Goldfields have had considerably more influence in distributing diggers over the Colony, than in securing their presence within that particular Province. They attracted many thousands of people some years ago, when the Wakamarina promised to compete with Tuapeka, the Dunstan, and the Shotover, but the rush thither was chiefly instrumental in inducing men to prospect the adjacent country, and to depart therefrom dissatisfied, for the West Coast, where they found profitable fields for their labor in the valley of the Fuller and the Grey, and in the vicinity of Hokitika, Since then only scattered parties have found work on the Wakamarina, or have opened reefs at the head of the Wairau, hut in the one situation their earnings have been but small and irregular, and in the other reefing proved as unprofitable as it has done at Wangapeka and Collingwood. According to the latest report of the gentlemen who holds the somewhat nominal position of Warden of the district, the prospects are not of a very encouraging character. His latest information is that, on the Wairau, there are now only eight men at work, these occasionally getting fair gold, and incidentally making such a find as a three-ounce nugget; but he sees no immediate prospect of improvement either in numbers of miners or returns. At the Pclorus also, ho anticipates a further decline, unless some means are adopted for a water - supply for the purpose of working tho terraces, but of the probable cost of such an undertaking no estimate is given, and there is but the indefinite statement that, in the opinion of tho many miners who have been in the locality, and of the few who are now there, most of the ten-aces are gold-bearing, and water only is required to make them remunerative. In the absence of this watersupply, the few miners whose faith or adhesiveness to the locality induces them to remain, have given some attention to prospecting for reefs, and they have got good indications, but “nothing more.” An ounce of gold is said to have been got from the cap of a reef in the Wakamarina, but even that prospect has not induced the finder to remain on tho ground, or to undertake the more easy and more profitable enterprise of floating a company, and the precise locality remains a secret. Notwithstanding, the Warden is still sanguine, and seems to believe that, “ from tho numberless specimens of quartz gold found at various times, there can be no reasonable doubt that gold-bearing reefs exist, and that it is only a question of time ns to their discovery.” It is sincerely to be hoped that his expectation may ho fulfilled, and that Marlborough Province will yet return to the mining community, at a high per centage, the money which has been expended in its exploration and in tho development of its auriferous resources.