MISCELLANEOUS

Otago Witness, Issue 2006, 4 August 1892, Page 14

MISCELLANEOUS

The Mount Ida Chronicle says : — "The weather this week has been intensely cold, and one or tw o slight showers of snow have fallen, but there has been little or no frost, and consequently the miners have been able to work continuously, the water supply having been very good. We believe this winter has so far been the mildest ever experienced in Naseby, and the fact that sluicing operations have been carried on uninteiruptedly right up to the end of July is certainly unprecedented in the district."

" July Ist " is the date of our Upper Waikaia correspondent's interesting letter, and the reason is explained in a private note :— " Send papers by Waikaia, as the road to Teviot is closed for the winter." Men who are prepared to endure the discomforts and even risks of a Whitecombe winter are deserving of any good fortune that has been theirs during the past summer ; in winter they live the life of the Esquimaux, and their only sunshine is the arrival of an occasional mail with news from friends and newspapers from the centres of population Yet their life, after all, is happier than that of many of the business men in our big cities ; in the'ease of the latter too often does " distance lend enchantment to the view," and a continual striving after the unnecessary and unreachable become distasteful and lead to despair. The pioneers of our goldliclds are not theorists, they have no particular love for posterity, they do not go blundering on absorbed in anticipatory admiration of a sun which for them may never rise ; they try their level best to so work the earth, to so disturb its surface, to so undermine it at promising places that gold shall be theirs — gold, bright and yellow, hard and cold. Who will grudge the pair of hardy miners at Potter's their lOOoz for a summer's work and their well-earned respite for the winter, perchance to be spent in the snow-capped regions from which none but those prepared to risk limb, nay life, can emerge for months to come?— Mataura Ensign. The correspondent alluded to above says :—: — "There is very little miningdoing on the Waikaia river this winter on account of the iloods. Even the Canton men when the river rises have to knock off. To take the river altogether they are not making more than "tucker." There area few Chinamen working in Timber Gully making small wages. At Potter's there were three men working this summer, and two of them have done very well, making close on lOOoz of gold for their summer's work ; the other man made small wages. At Campbell's they have done very little the floods putting them back. At Allan's Gully

the Chinamen are just making small wages, and at the Pomahaka the Rise and Shine Company have knocked off for the winter. At the head of Eraser's river there were two men working all the summer with good results. I did not hear what they made. At the North Pole there was nothing done, the weather being against mining in that locality." The mine manager of tke Amalgamated Waipori Deep Lead Gold Mining Company (Limited) reports for week ending 23rd inst. as follows :— " Worked full time during last week." July 26 : " Woi-k got stopped at 4 this morning, the bottom dirt pipe having worn away to such an extent as to make the elevator unworkable. The receiver is also worn out at the back ; this, however, would not have stopped work for some time. I hope to have the damaged pipe temporarily patched up and everything going again before night."