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Kohinoor the average will be very much less. Both claims have been thoroughly prospected, with highly payable results, and their future operations, when fairly at work, are looked forward to with great interest. However, it will be about six months before they are at work. Most of the machinery is ready, and with despatch in the erection the above limit may be considerably reduced. As will be seen, a large number of prospecting areas remain to be converted into special claims. Some prospecting is going on, but most of the holders are simply waiting to hear the results of those having dredges at work in their neighbourhood, or who are conducting boring operations. The Boss United (Limited), a most valuable property, is again under offer by the liquidators to an English syndicate. This covers a subsidy of £15,000 from the Government'to be used in procuring and erecting a complete electric plant on the Mikonui Biver, and erecting a firstclass mining plant on the claim on Boss Flat, to be worked by the power transmitted from the electric plant on the Mikonui. The proposed plant will furnish sufficient power to work this, and other mining machinery where power is required. I understand there is a reasonable hope of this coming off, and if it does there are good times in view for Boss. Okarito Sub-district. This, like other sub-districts on the Coast, has been overrun by dredging companies, more especially on the sea-beaches and lagoons, that in former days produced such large quantities of gold. Up to date ninety-three prospecting-licenses and eleven special claims have been granted. On Okarito Lagoon a company has the pontoons of a dredge under construction. This company has erected a small sawmill plant, and is procuring and cutting the timber on the ground. A second-hand dredging plant has been purchased, and will be put on the pontoons when finished. This plant is to be used as a prospecting plant on the lagoon, where a large area is held under prospecting licenses. This is a wise precaution in view of the failure to find payable gold in claims taken on trust after expensive plants have been erected. Should the results prove satisfactory other dredges will follow. A second dredge is, I am told, being built for a claim near Mapourika, but the pontoons are not yet under way. Some of the beaches are being prospected with satisfactory results, notably the Saltwater, where a number of claims are held by a Wanganui syndicate, who expect to have their first dredge on one of their claims at an early date. I have been kindly furnished with the following information regarding the Waiho Hydraulic Company : " The original company has gone out of existence. During the year the company spent several hundred pounds in opening up a new face. This proved unsatisfactory, and it was resolved to wind up the company and commence anew with fresh capital. About £16,000 had been spent in bringing in a water-race from the Totara Biver, and it was felt by those interested that after so much capital had been spent, and with such a copious supply of water as the company's race delivers, further efforts should be made to develop the property. There can be no doubt of the richness of the Waiho Biver bed, and it is conceivable that the banks are payable also : many rich finds have been made. Therefore a new company has been formed to take over the assets of the old company, and again, on a larger scale, uniting with sluicing the popular work of dredging. At first it is intended to take the water to the upper end of the claim, where gold was being obtained by those who pegged out their claims first, and try if the lead cannot be followed into the terrace. A blow-up (hydraulic elevator) may also be tried in the bed of the river when it is very low. Five dredging areas of 100 acres each have been taken up at the mouth of the Waiho, and an expert is to be sent out from London, with suitable machinery and the latest boring apparatus, to test these areas, and if they are found to contain gold in payable quantities suitable dredges will be built to work them. The working capital of the company is £15,000. This, with the present plant, machinery, and race, ought to be ample to prove and partly develop the properties." A few miners are scattered along the beaches as far as Jackson's Bay, but the bulk of the population depend more on stock-raising and sleeper-cutting than on gold-getting. No doubt when a suitable plant is forthcoming for working the beaches mining will then take its proper place as a paying industry; until this is done, or new fields opened, mining in the far south is a thing of the past. I have repeatedly called the attention of the local bodies to the more than potential mineral values of the block of country lying south of Jackson's Bay, and to the one requisite for its utilisation—viz., good pack-tracks for the use of individual miners who are being crowded out of the old mining centres by the large companies. We want new fields opened for the individual miner, and the best way to obtain this desirable end is for the outlying districts being made fairly accessible by the construction of pack-tracks, and let the digger do the rest. The present means of communication south is by subsidised steamer every two months, and Government steamer every three months, and by overland mail every week to Okarito, and fortnightly further south. The Great South Boad as far as Okarito is nearly completed, and is fit for wheeled traffic, and but for the rivers tourist and ordinary traffic would be considerable. If the big Wanganui and Wataroa Bivers were bridged—l think they are unsuitable for punts—with what is known as low-level bridges, which can be constructed at a moderate cost, it would meet the want for many years, and would induce an increased tourist traffic. Further south the horse-road is now open through to the Karangarua Biver, connecting with Gillespie's Beach by a branch road, and with Bruce Bay by the sea-beach ; thence on to the Haast Biver. The track over the Haast Pass to the head of Lake Wanaka is passable for horses all the year round. In the extreme south, including the Olivine or Cascade Banges, tracks are badly wanted to open known auriferous country at present totally unoccupied, the necessity for which I have already brought under the notice of the Government. In view of the increased interest taken in our coalmeasures, I would point out that on the Bald Hill, north of the Haast, we have outcrops of firstclass bituminous coal, pointing to the existence of an extensive coalfield. Cox aud McKay, when