MAJOR HEAPHY'S OPINION OF THE THAMES GOLDFIELD.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXII, Issue 2612, 21 December 1867, Page 6

MAJOR HEAPHY'S OPINION OF THE THAMES GOLDFIELD.

At a r.if.^intv l:,toly held ah the Viiniyll i ii;:ll, Auckland, I\\:\'] <v llcnphy said " that ho liad boon resident for several weeks at tlie Thames, and had given his attention seriousty to fclio circumstant'es of the development of that gold field. He had come back to Auckland after a deliberate and careful examination, in which he had visited every claim or working on the ground, and was convinced that the district would be of enormous wealth to the province. The development of the fic l d must be slow, and required systematic labor — not the labor which the casual digger could at once give. From what lie had seen, lie thought that there vrere several rich auriferous districts in the same range. That country would be valuable not only on account of the gold, but the other minerals which thp mountains contained. One great advantage which that field had was that the cost of living was so much cheaper than in the interior of Otago or Victoria. Of coarse, in all diggings there would be disappointed men, but those disappointed men were not so great in proportion at Shortland as they had been at other diggings. Ko might say that ho visited all the claims held by people from Pavnell, and they seemed to have been specially successful. Thero was scarcely one of them but promised exceedingly well. He was gratified to see young men whom he had known in cliffei'ent occupations in the neighborhood, working with a steady perseverance and energy that was an example to many of the old miners from Melbourne and Olago. (Cheers.) He aaiil, legislate how they liked on those mattcrr,, bub give the whole attention of the best and ablest men to that goldfield, for there lay a great part of the wealth of the province ; and it would bring the province from its present state of depression."