DUNSTAN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 782, 20 June 1864, Page 6

DUNSTAN.

(from ottr our correspondent.)

17th June.

With the increasing population, and the bad state of the roads, the necessaries of life are becoming rather scarce, and prices are considerably advancing. Yesterday, L6O per ton was offered and refused for flour, stocks being rvery small. Mr Edmondson, the spirited proprietor of the Victoria theatre, has once more set us all alive again by the introduction of a musical and dramatic company, which arrived on Tuesday night from Dunedin. It is composed of Mr E. F. Morris, Mr F. Clifton, and Mi3s Annie Hall, and in conjunction ■with those really excellent musicians— Messrs. Wright and Owen forms a very creditable turn-out for an up-country district, incapable of supporting a wellorganised dramatic company.

The Pioneer Sluicing Company are getting ahead very fast with the cutting of their race. Yesterday I went up the river as far as the Hanging Rock, on purpose to make a personal inspection of the works. From the Company's ten-acre lease to the head of the race the distance is about three miles. The manager, Mr. Jas. Hacket, has now fifteen men employed, exclusive of himself, he setting the very worthy example of leading his men at their several tasks, About one-third of the race is already completed, and with the exception of difficult places where large projecting rocks will require to be cut away, or where the placing of the fluming is attended with difficulty, the remainder of the work is all let out in small contracts of from twenty chains to half a mile, at rates varying from 14s to LI per chain according to the nature of the ground. Thsse parts requiring much care, the manager prefers having done by means of hired labor, under his own direct superintendence, for if the work is carelessly performed, there will be a great loss of water through leakage, and perhaps damage, occasioned by the bursting of the race, requiring a large outlay to make good. The length of fluming to be used is calculated at about half a mile, for the construction of which there is nearly sufficient timber already on the ground. Employing the present number of men, the manager expects to have everything complete and be ready to set his sluice boxes in about three weeks or a month. The company possess water rights to the extent of eighteen sluice heads (a head of water measures 20 inches by 2); eight are from the Souvra Creek, eight from the Hanging Rock Creek, and two from the German Creek. At present the supply will only be taken from the Hanging Rock and German Creek, which will effect a saving of half a mile of cutting and permit sluicing operations to be commenced much earlier than where the whole extent of the race is to be previously completed throughout. All these creeks take their rise in the Dunstan Ranges and empty themselves into the Molyneux, at about half a mile's distance from each other. The supply of water ia a never failing one, only short at periods like the present when hail frosts prevail. The rights held by the company are certainly very valuable, as they command the banks of the river for a distance of nine miles; and with a race of that length they can not only supply the town of Clyde with a stream of pure clear water, running in its midst, but command any of the rich banks or beaches

along that entire distance. Returning along the course of the race I came once again to the claim, which is on, or rather is, a terrace itself, as the whole from top to bottom will be washed away. It rises from the edge of the Molyneux, runs back some three or four hundred feet, where it abuts on the primitive formation, a spur from the Dunstan ranges. The height of the terrace may be computed at an average of from £fty to sixty feet, and is composed of the usual layers of gravel and boulders, and contains gold throughout, but the greatest quantity is in a layer of very coarse gravel, of from two to three feet in depth, resting on the bed rock, a soft mica schist. In several places, tunnels have been driven in by miners which have proved remunerative, although worked to considerable disadvantage, such as wheeling the stuff out in barrows, and cradling it at the water's edge, while some have even carried it down in buckets, or dragged it along in bags. Now, if ground worked by those means paid men considerably less than half wages, or even —as the diggers call it—gave them " bare tucker," when once the water is brought on to the ground, and the liquid element made to perform that which was hitherto done by men's hands, the returns will be something handsome, and the speculation cannot fail to prove remunerative, especially as by the hydraulic system, four heads of water will dislodge some 900 tons of earth per diem. I tried several prospects, dug out by myself; those from the bottom layer gave two and three grains of coarse gold to the dish, while those from the top stuff, as far up as the surface, averaged half a grain of fine gold. Judging from the prospects, I should consider that when once the claim is properly opened and in working order, the Pioneer Company cannot fail to prove a decided success, and even should such a circumstance occur that they are not satisfied with the yield from their present claim having command of so many miles of river bank, they can pick and choose when they like, for having posession of the water, no one can oppose them, and they are as safe as if they had taken a lease of the banks of the Molyneux from the Senora to Mutton Town Creeks, which as I said before, is a distance of nine miles.