LATER NEWS FROM MELBOURNE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 319, 27 December 1862, Page 5

LATER NEWS FROM MELBOURNE.

By the barque Victoria we have Melbourne papers to the 12th inst. The news by the English Mail has already been anticipated via Hobart Town. We extract the following items of Australian news from the Argus of the 12th instant:— It is satisfactory to know that the value of the Cape Paterson coal field is becoming better understood from day to day. Some 1,600 or 1,700 tons of coal have been brought to market, and have been sold at not unsatisfactory prices. Th« coal is now being tested for railway purposes, a<H< if it is approved for locomotive use. the Railway Deportment will be enabled considerably to redive its exp nditure. The same experiments will perhaps determine its value for steam purposes, and we may find that the produce of our mines will ere Jonur compote with both home conl and that of New South Wales, for the purposes of ihe shipping; phhi-r on or visiting our water*. A nugget, containing 140 ounces of gold, has been found in Break-o'-Day Gully, near Sandhurst by a coloured man, who fossicks about the gully. ' A woman named Mary Nichoils, the wife of a miner, ha« died in California Wully, near Sandhurst from eating poisonous fish. Her husband and children were also affected with the usual symptons of poisoning by phosphorus, but recovered. Gold and black sand have been discovered in the neighborhood of Cipe Otway, by the prcspectinc party conducted by Allan, who. in his report, published in the Warrnambool Examiner, says:—" I should not advise any one to come here unless' he is capable of bearing much toil, and, at firsfc, much privation. Water is very abundant—the country being every where intersected with most splendid rivulets • abounding with the native trout, herring, black fish' and eels. Timber is also very plentiful. I measured one gum-tree, and at the butt ifc was forty feet, in circumference, and I can safely say it was at least 150 feet in the barrel, without a limb ; so that you can guess the actual height of the tree, and it was not the' larjre>t I have-seen by many feet." The Bendigo Advertiser, in announcing the discovery of " another large nngget from Dead Bollock Gully," says—" We have much pleasure in recording the finding of another large nugget, intermixed with quartz, in • Dead Bullock Gully—or, as it is oftener termed, Robinson Crusoe Gully weighing 2430z 17dwt. The lucky finder in this instance is the same man who found a nugget some few months ago, in the same locality, weighing forty-eight ounces. His name is Benjamin Wilson a colored man. Tlie circumstances <onnected with the finder are rather interesting. It appears that Wilson had been " hatting," or working alone, with very indifferent success, since his last find, the monetary produce of which had. we hear, bsen rather improvidently expended. Just before knocking off on Monday night, he took out a pillar from an old drive in which he had been working and leaving the washing-stuff all right in the tub* it was not until he was preparing to cradle it that the last water revealed the welcome stranger. The specimen, which contains a large proportion ol pure gold, has been sold to Mr Bannerman, of the Bank ef New South Wales gold office, where it cau be seen, the find has caused considerable excitement in the neighborhood." ."_""-"fi '■" The Municipal CouncU of Back Creek have instructed the coroner to bold an inquiry into the cause of the fire in Scandinavian-crescent, owingjto the contradictory reports in circulation as tor the cause. The inquiry will open to-morrow morning at ten o'dook, -