ARRIVAL OF THE WILLIAM MISKIN FROM HOKITIKA.

Wellington Independent, Volume XX, Issue 2239, 1 August 1865, Page 7

ARRIVAL OF THE WILLIAM MISKIN FROM HOKITIKA.

TOTAL WRECK O-F THE STEAMER TITANIA.

INCREASED HUSH TO THE G-RET

5,500 OUNCES OP GOLD BROUGHT BY THE WILLIAM MISKIN.

This Nelson Examiner of the 25th instant SfIVS I*""* Tho steamer William Miskin reached Nelson on Saturday afternoon, having left Hokitika on the preceding morning. The steamer Tifcania, which left our port on Saturday, the 15th July, for Hokitika, with a large number 01 passengers, many of whom were females whom she had brought from Dunedin, was wrecked on Wednesday morning, in attempting to cross the Hokitika bar. No lives were lost, and principal parb of the cargo was saved. The sad disaster occurred through misunderstanding the shore signals. The chief news is the rush to the Grey, where the diggings are turning out exceedingly well. Great numbers of persons are leaving Hokitika for the Nelson diggings. The William Miskin has brought with her 5,500 ounces of gold, which, added to the 1 10,000 ounces brought by the JWallaby on the preceding Monday, gives 15,500 ounces i of gold received in Nelson from Jlokitika i within a week.

The schooner Tiger, from Nelson, went on shore on the South Spit in attempting to enter the river. The Cymraes, which had grounded on the North Spit, had been got off. We extract the following from the West Coost Times of July 15 and 19 : — We have received from a correspondent a few remarks of a prospecting tour to the southward of Hokitika. The writer says— '• We could obtain gold almost everywhere, but not in payable quantities. _ What seems to be a very great drawback, is the fact that we could never obtain bottom, and the wash, in most of the places we tried, appears unstratified. It seems to me from Abut Head for a considerable distance south, the mountains approach too closely the sea, consequently the course of the rivers is very short, to which I attribute the confused state of the wash ; it being found always more so the nearer wo approach the source of the rivers. It is on this account that my mate and partyare now trying between Arnot Point and Jackson's Bay, where the mountains recede a considerable distance from the shore, and form a bight similar to the tract of country on the coast where Hokitika is situated. We expect to find that the continuation of the reefs of the Lake gold-fields of Otago."

Southekn Members.— Among the lisfc of passengers by the s.s Tararua from the South, we observe the names of Mr Crosbie Ward, the Hon Gr. 0. W, Eussell; Messrs Pillans, A. E. C. Strode, Dillon Bell, Eolland, Patterson, Walker, Lance, Harman, and Tancred, all members of the General Assembly nad Legislative Council.

Major Von Temspky.— The Wanganui Times says :— This gallant officer has somewhat recovered from the violent attack or rheumatism from which he has been suffering and is able to walk about with the aid of a stick. It must have been highly gratifying to him to see the way in which his men flocked round him, on their seeing him aole to get ont again. . Although he is far from being in a fit state to accompany the expedition to Pipiriki, he is determined to go.

The Panama Contract.— -The Sydney Morning Herald thus alludes to the Panama contract in a leading article: — "It is satisfactory to learn that the route is to be opened out by purely colonial enterprise, and thai; the steam girdle round the ghibe is to be completed by colonies whose growing importance justifies the undertaking. But itis scarcely satisfactory to the metropolitan colony of Australia to remember that, in all the negotiationsthat have led to this practical result, we have played second fiddle to NewZealand— a colony that a few year's ago was looked upon as a little more than an appanage of New South Wales. Nor is it very consoling to remember that, though we have promised to become partners in the enterprise the Government did not venture to bring forward the necessary bill, inasmuch as there were no funds in the treasury to back the guarantee.