TASMANIA.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1256, 9 April 1883, Page 2

TASMANIA.

Official returns just published shwp, ry Gj&gfigytt Ofygbid for tike pgßtyeV tb> r^ feaVei)eeii'iStEe V value of £160,885. " : showing a decline on the past two years, which were respectively £169,648 and* 6810,479. The deficiency arose partly from suspended work in the leadingclaims at Lefroy during the erection of machinery, and partly, it must be confessed, from decay in the quality of the Chum line stone. The best of our gold claims, with the exception of the Tasmania and Wonder at Beaconsfield, are patchy and uncertain, but we have not yet tested the ground at any great depth, and may therefore, have all the permanence before us. Up to Christmas, 1881, Lefroy had two steady dividend-paying claims in the New Chum and West Chum, which between them distributed about £80,000, but both stopped payment early in 1882, and only one dividend has resulted from them during the year, and that came from the New Chum, which at last Christmas gave 2s per share. Another promising claim in this district is the Land o'Gakes, which paid its first dividend of Is at Christmas, and is now crushing about 400 ton per month, yielding about loz to* the ton, and promising, from the large surface of gold-bearing stone revealed,, to be a permanently producing mine. During the half-year ending December the company crushed 774 tons of quartz, with a result of 8520z of gold,, of the value of £3289. A compact . battery has been erected and paid for put of the proceeds of the mine, and the undertaking is free of debt. The continuation of this line of reef is confidently expected in the adjoining Rob Hoy, Bannock, and Waverey claims, whichareincourseofdevelopment The other gold producing claims in the Lefroy district are the New Native Youth, Morning Star, United Churn* East Chum, West Chum— all in process of opening out, but none of them as yet dividend-paying. The Back Creek locality, distant from Lafroy about six miles, has lately attracted consider able attention. For the past 10 years it has been worked at intervals for alluvial gold, and parties of miners have taken rich finds from shallow places j but although the indications of deep alluvial auriferous leads are everywhere apparent, no systematic mode of working has heretofore been applied. Latterly a small company has been testing, the ground by means of a diamond drill,, and it seems we have a rich dormant goldfield waiting exploration. All th«fertures of this locality resemble 1 strongly those of the deep lead country of Victoria ; and if we can but bringenterprise and capital to work this district according to the system applied in other alluvial goldfields, we may soon have another Kingston or Smeaton. Beaconsfield prospers far ahead of the older Sepoy. In the Tasmania claim we have a solid source of uninterruped revenue: the company has distributed a quarter of a million in dividends during four years, and there is not the smallest symptom of any weakening of its resources. Up to the middle of last year the whereabouts of the continuance of the rich lead of the Tasmania was a mystery, which, however, was solved about six months ago by discovery of indications of similar stone in the three adjoining claims — the Providence, th.3 Moonlight, and the Little Wonder.