NOTES FROM DUNSTAN. (From Our Clyde Correspondent.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2253, 6 May 1897, Page 30

NOTES FROM DUNSTAN. (From Our Clyde Correspondent.)

May 3.— The Fraser River takes its course through a rugged and inhospitable-looking couutry lying to tae south-west of the Old Man Range. The river drains a vast extent of auriferous country where time and again valuable deposits of alluvion have been discovered. Every email creek, gully, or natural indentation occurring in the geological formation "has been found to contain gold in more or less payable quantity. Therefore it was only reasonable to expect that rich deposits existed along the course of the Fraser Kiver, which is the natural receptacle for all debris that flood waters may carry away from the niany auriferous waterco u-ses and spurs forming the watershed of the river. Time and again prospectors have made valuable finds in that neighbourhood, and I am informed that a party of Chinamen have been very successful in their undertaking of wing-damming the river, which enabled them to work the channel from side to side — a worlc they have been carrying on for several months back upon highly payable ground." It is stated that this same party hit upon some very rich pockets in the bed l ock.

The dredging boom was well nigh extending its fteld of operations to the Waikerikeri Valley, and, indeed, several dredging areas were marked off there, when the Department of Agriculture entered certain objections, or asked for certain concessions, which practically amounted to the same thing. The applicants for dredging areas were not willing to accept privileges laden with ; all sorls of inexplicable conditions just because the Department of Agriculture had very undecided views about establishing an experimental fruit station in the district. It is simply a little politicayoV this same rumour of an experimental station. There is not the slightest intention of -setting up such an establishment here; and, indeed, it is only just to admit that people are beginning to behold the political sop. Every acre ! of 'available land in this district is already under cultivation— -i.e., so much of it as is fit | for cultivation, the remaining portion being a barren waste of inhospitable appearance, where even a Scotch thistle would fail to' obtain ' sufficient nutriment to support f a ' "respectable existence. Probably the Department of' Agriculture would have us grow fruit j trees on this sterile soil: If such is intended, then let*'the experimental station go ahead, but for any sake don't hinder the advancement of mining iv this district, for no other industry can possibly i discover encouraging resources here.

A pirty of Chinamen working in Blackman's Creek are said to be doing remarkably well. They have leased a never-failing water supply, and they .work the ground on the hydraulic principle. The many sluicing claims on the west bank of the Molyaeux between the townships of Clyde and Alexandra are now being worked with a full supply of water. »