The Westport Times. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1869.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 556, 18 September 1869, Page 2

The Westport Times. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1869.

Magna est Quartz, et prevahhit. " From Dan to Beersheba " —from Ivluri - Wenua Peninsula to Port Pegasus—the cry is of quartz-reefs, and still they are everywhere starting into existence, absolute or imagirarv. What Discovery fails to furuish Invention supplies. The problem is to ascertain where the one ends, and where the other begins. According to the lively picture presented by the inventor, the speculator, " and others," New Zealand is one mountainous mass of quartz, surrounded by a sea of scrip. According to the practical estimate of the hard-working prospector, who has hoped much, and realised little, you have but to ascend the mountain, I: look down the crater," and your fate will be to find, with Sir Charles Coldstream, that there's " nothing in it." The difficulty of eliminating truth from fiction would almost tempt one to give the probably rash advice—Take no scrip ; put not your faith in prospectuses. But with the <: noble vista " of hope and probable prosperity presenting itself between "Westport and the Waimongaroa, and between this day and this day twelve-months, this is neither the place nor the season for such advice to bo given. Westport has long enough waited upon the Waimongaroa and its reefs to do something for it ; the Waimongaroa and its reefs will, in a few days, wait upon Westport and the world to do something for them. And it is our place to prostitute even Shakespeare at the shrine of such a promising enterprise as the Waimongaroa Quartz Mining Company, and to say, with more sincerity than Macbeth— May good demand wait upon their scrip, And luck on both ! What we want to do just now is to summarise into a few words the record of the latest developments of the quartz mania—we shall call them, for the sake of courtesy, the latest discoveries. The latest and nearest has been at Charleston. The Herald tells us that, once upon a time, and fifteen miles up the Nile river, " Yankee Charlie " and others got superior and suggestive specimens. A crushing of these, the other day, induced the outset of" Murphy and party " to the locality, and what they went to know they, no doubt, know by this time; but for the present our contemporary " forbears causing any excitement." Next comes the Grey River Art/us with a story of a party of miners, who were prospecting near the North Beach, and only one mile in from the sea, striking a quartz-reef, " from which they took some highly auriferous specimens;" and adds ihe Argus : —" There is every , reason to believe that the discovery is a genuine one." Prom across the ranges—from Canterbury—we learn that Dr Hector discourages the lively anticipations of the Christchurch people with regard to the Peninsula reefs, but encourages those prospecting by the assurance that the reefs, " in some points," resemble those of the Thames and Coromnndel. Prom Stewart's Island the latest is that a crushing of five tons has been sent to Melbourne, and meantime Hope is the only human thing at work. At Old Skipper's in, Otago, a new reef, 200 feet down, nine feet thick, and yieldi-ig an ounce to the ton, casts even some new reefs at the Shotover into the shade. And what do we hear still nearer home—from no further away than Wanganui ? That near Lake Taupo Capt. McDonnell and Christopher, Bracken have discovered quartz " equal to any found in Auckland," and that for thesegentlcmen the Wanganui Prospecting Committee have claimed the Wellington Government reward. Where next? Where not?