Tambaroora Gold-fields.

Cromwell Argus, Volume III, Issue 130, 7 May 1872, Page 7

Tambaroora Gold-fields.

The ancient fame of this district (says a Melbourne paper of recent date) appears to have been permanently revived. It is said that in November last, when the members of a special commission from Sydney visited the field to ascertain its requirements, what with gold in quartz, gold in slate, gold crystallised in tubes, and gold hanging in strings, one of them confessed that he was quite weary of looking at such riches. Tambaroora is a postal mining township in the electoral and police district of Wellington, New South Wales. At a distance of about ten miles to the westward runs the Macquarie River, taking a course from S.E. to N.W. The mining towns of Hargraves and Sofala are distant from Tambaroora eighteen and twenty miles respectively, the roads being abominably rough. The geological formation is granite and quartzbearing slate. The district is entirely a mining one, both alluvial and quartz mining having been cai-ried on for many years, but the former has gradually given way to the | latter. The line of reef now occupied extends four miles north of Hillend, and ten miles south of Chambers’ Creek, or a distance of fourteen miles. In this long line there is but little spare ground, and throughout its whole extent golden stone may be found in greater or less quantity cropping out on the surface. Old workings mark the course of the reefs, but the appearance of these poorattempts shows how little was known by the workers of modern mining. As soon as a difficulty in the shape of a hardish bar of rock w r as met with, or a fault, the place was abandoned for a surface patch at hand. But a better guide than a compass on old workings exists, a distinct bar of rock marking the western limit of the reefs, and extending from the north end of Hawkins’ Hill to the granite bluff at Chambers’ Creek. This bardivides the reefs and country, having a westerly underlay : it is a strange natural feature of the place. The eastern underlay is the favourite, and deservedly so, not more than one or two samples existing where the western was any good ; but this may arise from want of knowledge of the western underlay. North of Hawkins’ Hill, along the Red Hill

to Tambaroora, the country—that is, on the surface—southward is covered with a bed of clay and slate to an average depth of 200 feet. In this slate are numerous reefs, containing patches of rich stone, and on it arc situated the old alluvial gullies which rendered this place famous about twenty years since. A correspondent thus writes: —“ The mines are improving, and the more the miners become acquainted with them the better they like them. Hawkins’ Hill bids fair to prove richer in gold than any mine in the world. I was told that £IO,OOO was offered the other day and refused for one-fourth share in Croman’s claim, —£14,000 being the price wanted for it. This is valuing 120 feet of ground at £04,000.” To sum up, in the words of an old experienced miner, “ the country is one vast chain of gold-bearing reefs for miles, of which Hawkins’ Hill will be the great centre, and eventually the Sandhurst of New South Wales.” Tambaroora is situated 108 miles from Sydney.—Since the above was written the following item has been flashed through Australia by the electric wires :—“Reliable news from Tambaroora states that the vein of gold through Paxton’s claim appears as a regular pillar of gold between the slate casing. Old miners say that nothing was ever known like it.