BIG BAY EXPEDITION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1513, 16 November 1886, Page 4

BIG BAY EXPEDITION.

> Big Bay, September 26. The Big Bay.prospectors, about 150 in number are camped on a narrow flat, •kbpat a mi’e from the month of the Awarua River. They landed on the 22nd insf., and their time since has been chiefly occupied in getting their, stores safely housed on the camping ground. The country is very rough and broken, such of the stratified rocks n? are exposed being tilted to an almost vertical position. The' beach irf‘ ?pv(red with immense boulders which'tender wa'kingimpossible. Yqu have to get along by a series of froglike leaps from boulder top to boulder top, and to do this with a bag of potatoes on yout ,shoulders is by rib means ari easy task. Yet tins is but preliminary to still more arduous w ork. Above the beach is 8 slightly rising flat about 600 yards in breath,’covered with dense scrub.. Then > we have a mountain range, high, precipitous, and heavily timbered, quite impracticablewithout tracks. Indeed, track-cutting I reckon the first work of the prospectors. The pot holes between the boulders on the beach have been industriously “ fossicked ” and their con-

teals washed ftut,; 1 - A little gold has been found. It is a fair . sample of rough gold, but it is altogether too scarce to be considered in /the least degree payable. ■ 1! October 5.

Prospecting, haq bepp.going forward briskly dqripg the past : Hoies have been Sunk on flats) ’terraces and gullies, and these have been “bottomed ” wherever possible,, with the result that scarcely color has i bean found. The only gold found in the neighborhood of Big Bay is . contained in .a tlrin fringe, of tvashdirt on the beach. Along the line of high-water mark the ground has bean and| la;go numbers have set in to work. The wash-dirt found under and between the huge boulders, with which the beach is strewn, is obtained with extreme difficulty, and hitherto has been small in quantity and.poor in quality. None of the claims, as far as I have been able to ascertain are yielding “ tucker.” A party of three men have Just washed up, after a week’s hard work, with the magnificent result of a little over 3dwt of gold. Their claim is, I believe, a fairly average one. Most of the claims have been already abandoned, and many of the miners are - leaving the place. While a few have gone south by way of Martin’s Bay, the bulk of those, leaving here, are pushing their way northwards in the direction of Gorge river, the vicinity of which will become the chief centre of future prospecting operations. A general feeling prevails here that Jackson’s Bay ought to have been selected as the point of debarkation for the Hinemoa’s passengers. They would there have had regular communication with the outer world, supplies could have been easily obtained, a less quantity of stores would have sufficed in the first instance, and the miners would have found themselves in a known gold country with all south of them open for prospecting.— Press. A letter has been received in Dunedin from one of the Big Bay prospectors. He complains of the Stella having gone past on tine days without calling in to see if any assistance was required. The writer slates that very little little gold is being got, but the prospectors expect to strike a lead any moment, and are hopeful of a paying field being found.