GOLD-SEEKING IN SIBERIA.

Western Star, 30 August 1918, Page 4

GOLD-SEEKING IN SIBERIA.

; A Now Zealander writes to his wife ; from Perevoy, N.E. Siberia, where he : is engaged in the arduous audi lonely i .work of .abstracting gold from that I land of vast and wealthy mineral resources. He states that the war and the ’ topsy-turvydoni of Russia have caused no serious trouble in his district except that provisions are scarce, and the people are on rations thereabouts. He dismisses that disability in the optimistic statement that he supposed all countries at war, were in the same predicament. Clothes, he state®, cannot be bought at any price, and it is hard to anticipate what will happen in the summer. At the time of writing he was working in clothes that he would have been a-shaanedi to give to a Chinaman in New 1 Zealand. tie intended sending to England for clothes, but was uncertain if they would reach him safely. The material for a suit of clothes could he bought at Perevoy for 400 roubles (£4O), andl a. pair of boots for 100 roubles. A friend oil i the writer’s had sent -to Petrcgrad for some articles, and amongst them were some socks, for which he was charged 14s per pair. The writer bought material to get two pains of trousers made. The material would not last more than three months, with cafe, and was worth ait most 50 kopecks, or about Is an asheen (28 inches), yet he had! to pay 21s an asheen. It) took) four asfieens to make the trousers, and 10 roubles was the cost of their manufacture, making £9 the total cost. He bought a pair of long-legged boots for the sum of 170 roubles (£17); The previous year he could have purchased the same boots for 25 roubles. The writer intended to put in another season’s dredging if the ice would not take away his machine. Dredging would not be too- good next sealson. with the dredge in its present condition —in fact, he did not think the pontoons would hold together for a season’s work. There were a number of repairs to be made and no material to effect them with. In that far aiway corner of the globe they heard very little about the war, and for the months prior to; January 13, when the letter was written, no word had been received from England. Even with Petrcgrad communication was possible by telegram only. Writing in March the same oorrelspondont stated that be had loft Perevoy, aiid was out in the wild again at a property called the Yolotai Yar (Golden Bank). He had 70 Chinese, 30 Koreans, and four Russians working with him. Tlte.se men had to: pay so much every day, and he bought their gold and sold them provisions. Once every nine days the manager of the property visited him to take a,way the gold purchased or 'obtained as rent. The life was very lonely, but one soon became accumstomed to it.