The Zeehan Silver Field.

Otago Witness, Issue 1934, 19 March 1891, Page 12

The Zeehan Silver Field.

Mr Durbrldge. Wallace county engineer, baa received a letter from his aon, who is at present at Mount Zeebau. Tasmania, which he hat placed at the disposal of the Western Star, and from which we make the following extract;— "The place ii wonderfully busy, buildings going up ia all directions, And the bustle and stir of the traffic is tremendous ; the chief difficulty In the way of the development of the place being the want of good means of transit. There are 100 teams on the road '.from here to Trial Bay, but as the road li in a frightful state the transit is very slow and good! are usually a long time lying at the port before they can be brought up. The distance ia 14 miles and in this fine weather the journey occupies seren hours with teams of three and four good hones. What it will bo in winter one scarcely cares to think, and the more serious thinking part of the populace are looking forward with anxiety to the prospect of a winter of famine. There are 3000 to 4000 men here where last winter there were not more than as many hundreds, and the facilities for transit and communication are now very little improved, and from what I could see the railroad will not be open for auother nino months unless the Government force the contractors. They are supposed to be employing 2090 men in the terms of their oontraot, while as a matter of fact last week's pay-sheet showed only 500 men at work. Once the difficulties of transit are overcome, and machinery and mining tools easily available, the place will boom at a tremendous rate. Men here who have seen the silver fields of the world— JSevada, Transvaal, and Broken Hill— say that they have seen nothing to equal this plaoe, and when one considers the enormous amount of country which has been prospected, and the proved richness of many of the lodes, there seems good ground for the statement. Many of the mines, perhaps the great majority, will ihot turn oufc nearly as well at the assays show, but even after making every allowance for this, it is evident that the field has a wonderful future. I shall leava the discussion of this to some future letter when I have gained a oloser acquaintance with the subject. There is a wonderful trade to be done here in New Zealand produce, suoh as butter, eggs, oats, flour, ohaft, 4c, if one only had a couple of 'good carry inff steamers with a light draught. Beef and mutton wonld also pay well if a suitable method of putting it on the market could be devised. At present nearly everything which we consume is of New Zealand manufacture, and the articles have a very good name. There are all kinds of New Zealand preserved meats, butter in 21b cans from Taranaki, bread made from flew Zealand flour, New Zealand hams, oheese* oatmeal, and various other articles, which all go to make up the staple food supply of the place. The only articles of local growth and manufacture are utually bad. The beef and mutton, by the time it reaches here, is wretched stuff, and Tasmanian jam Is a compound to be carefully avoided. A new bakery has just started which supplies us with excellent bread made from Hobarfc stone-dressed flour— in my opinion a muoh better article than its roller-made opponent. You can judge for youself of the climate when I give you the rainfall figures:— At Waratab, the "wettest known place In Tasmania, the rainfall was 761n for last year. At Zeehftn the gauge has been kept for only 150 days, and during that period 78in of rain have fallen, and that five months embrace the summer «eason. How does that strike you for damp ? Still the rain is a blessing in one way in the present state of the towa's existence. A month's hot dry weather would place a great part of the population In the fever hospital, which is a tworoomed edifice close to our tent, built of logs, and with the baok of thp wooden ohimney burnt out I "