COAL ISLAND, PRESERVATION INLET, AND MAINLAND. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2058, 3 August 1893, Page 16

COAL ISLAND, PRESERVATION INLET, AND MAINLAND. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

July 28.— There is nothing fresh to report from this quarter. All the miners on the island are busily employed. It has been raining pretty regularly all the month, so that water is plentiful. At No. 1 creek Snow and party have finished their huts, and have their claim in first-class working order. They expect to get well paid for their labour during the rainy season. At No. 2 creek Haberfield and party have been doing remarkably well during the past few months. Higher up the creek a fresh claim has struck what seems to be the real gold run, away out on the terrace. Should this prove to be the case a few more claims are likely to prove payable. Higher up again Campbell and Bradshaw are still working away. So far they have not succeeded in getting on the run of the heavy gold, but expect to do so when they near the reef on the left bank of the At No. 3 creek Kirkland and Rowell are fast approaching the falls, and expect to get something good at the bottom. These falls are about 60ft high, and the spray makes it rather unpleasant to work in the neighbourhood. At Moonlight some are doing pretty well now and then. The ground is very patchy, and the best appears to have been worked out. 1 On the mainland No. 1 Sealer's bears the palm. Several parties here are doingvery well, and a few men are working here and there about the inlet, bu,t are only waiting, Micawber like, to see what will turnup. AS the Wilson only a few are working in the river and a few on the terraces. The river has been too high during the last six weeks, so that most of them are only making bare tucker. At the] reef, however, things look a good deal better. The Prospectors put in a bit of a drive into the bank of the river somewhat higher than where it was struck at first, and the reef looks rather better there than ever it did. Very little work has been done yet, so that it is impossible to say much about it. I have seen nearly as good prospects on the Nenthorn ; yet, as all know, it did not turn out a dividend paying reef. This reef in one particular is very different from the Nenthorn ones'. They were etruok on or near the surface ; this one in a deep gorge some 700 ft or 800 ft below the tops of the banks of the Wilson, and, as a consequence, in solid country, and it is likely to prove lasting and payable. No. 1 North sank and struck a reef, but with no gold. Whether this is the reef the Prospecto/s are on or a parallel one no one can say with certainty. This party deserves better fortune, for they have done more work than all the rest of the claimholders put together, and I trust they may soon strike something good. The stone in No. 1 South shows a little gold, but like the rest of them there is too little work done to be able to judge whether it is of any value or not. The rest of the claims are in abeyance. The tramway from the township of Cromarty to the reef is being pushed ahead at a great rate, and the township is beginning to look as if it were to be a town after all. The hotels seems to be doing a good trade, especially on Saturdays and Sundays. We have no police here, so Sundays are our great bacchanalian days. About a mile down the inlet from the township, and right on to Crayfish Island, quartz specimens have been found along the beach, and on the slope of the hill, showing gold freely, and some of them even very rich. A syndicate has three or four men employed prospectiDg for a reef, and whoever finds the reef these rich specimens came fro/a is almost sure of a handsome pile.