ADDISON'S FLAT.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 478, 16 March 1869, Page 2

ADDISON'S FLAT.

(feom oue own cobrespondent.) Mabch 13. The lead behind the township has not realised in washing according to the prospects obtained. One partyhave desisted from work, affirming that, in consequence of the cost of timber, and accompanying expenses, the returns are not sufficient to induce them to extend the recent workings, at the same time expressing an opinion to the effect that the lead will all be eventually worked. It is also my own opinion, that when the restless desire for larger finds, so characteristic of the miner, has subsided, he will turn his attention to the poorest ground, of which there is an almost unlimited area in the district, and, with an extended system of working, lam sanguine will pay well. I forget the authority, but one of our philosophers has said that he who can make two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, confers upon mankind a greater boon than the combined efforts of our greatest statesmen. The philosopher of modern times on the goldfields may say, he who can devise means whereby two loads of dirt may be washed where only one was washed before confers more benefit on the digging kind than the most earnest partizan of separation or the reverse. The system of ground-sluicing is coming into more general operation here. I observe a party bringing up a tail-race, I imagine for this purpose, to some ground at the foot of a terrace running parallel with the road from Westport, on "Waite's Pakihi. Mood and party some days ago struck a very fair prospect, on the same lead, further south. Two or three claims adjoining this party have since been taken up, but this lead is proverbially patchy, and may come under the category of ground requiring a more comprehensive system of working.

The Addison's Flat men were taking a preliminary exercise at foot ball, last week, prior to their contest on the seventeenth of this month, and from the display of skill and determine ation, the Charleston men will be put upon their mettle. I gather from your paper that the Giles and Hatter's Terrace miners are desirous of testing their cricketing prowess with the Westportians. Unless there is a maximum of cricketing skill resident on those terraces, 1 am afraid the contest will prove unequal. Instead of restricting the «anvass for cricketers to the above-named localities, why not make it a general contest of miners versus citizens, and no doubt there shall be found in other districts I cricketers of passable merits, and worthy of being included in an eleven.