The Criffel Goldfield.

Otago Witness, Issue 1764, 12 September 1885, Page 19

The Criffel Goldfield.

(PROM OUR WANAKA CORRESPONDENT.)

Mount Criffel, Friday. The public mind has been worked up to a great extent by writers who have not thought of the responsibility attached to goldfield reports, 'especially from new fields. I hope the public will estimate the difference between the value of notes based on common rumour and hearsay and my notes written from the field.

Hearing that miners were at work I interviewed Benton and party yesterday. I told them my mission, and from, the elder of the party elicited the following information : — " We have ' pile ground ' if we had a copious and constant supply of water — i.e., for sluicing from surface to bottom. Our shaft is 60ft deep. We can get colour in the sinking, and on the false bottoms sunk through we obtained half a grain to the dish. We have 6ft of washdirt on the main bottom, containing in our opinion payable gold." Another party has sunk below them (on shallower ground) and are said to have obtained encouraging prospects, though to the right of them, looking upwards, several duffer shafts are down; while to the left the country is broken by the Luggate Creek, and on the other fall (for Benton and party's claim is situated in a basin near the top of a saddle) the ground is all taken up by Moylan's party and others. No fresh finds are reported.

I once again say to all intending comers : Be advised, men, and wait a few weeks yet. Snow fell heavily more than once during the past week, and there is fully a foot of it lying about the main diggings now. The cold is fearful. There is no firewood. No store is finished yet, and no provisions that I have heard of are on the top. Husband your resources, and you will then have funds to prospect the country. Wait till fine weather sets in, and provisions are on the field, and every needful at hand, then when you make your raid on Criffel you can riddle her as you have riddled many a field in days of yore, and may every true digger go in and win. Should anything of a startling nature occur at any time I shall wire you. None but men possessed of patience, endurance, energy, and stamina need come here.