"especially Pompey."
Far be it from me to disparage the authority of my city friends who have condescendingly endeavoured to enlighten me upon the subject; but then there is this difficulty ~~ there are as many lines as spectators, and no sooner is my faith established in one theory than it is rudely overturned by some yet more eminent authority, who is equally well informed as to what Nature must have done thousands of years back. I have yet to learn the sources from which these geological wiseacres draw their inspiration, and unless I had seen it I should not have guessed that shopkeeping in Sydney for ten or fifteen years enabled a man to see farther through a millstone than anybody else. As a good supply of oracles must by this time have got back to town, I fear to give any learned disquisition on the subject, for my friend Jones will at once detect the piracy of his opinions, while, mayhap, Smith (who had previously obtained my acquiescence to a precisely opposite conclusion) will wrathfully denounce me as an impostor. As you look from Hawkins Hill down the valley of the Turon southward on any fine day, one of the farthest objects on which your eye rests is a large square patch, which you are told is Chambers Creek. It is a sunny spot apparently clear of timber, and as you are told it is only six or seven miles, you naturally desire to visit it. In fulfilment of the resolve above recorded, I determined to put that distance of six or seven miles between me and my speculative friends on the Hill, and (deluded ass that I was) to do it on foot. I had walked six or seven miles scores of times, before, and, feeling all that buoyancy and exhilaration of spirit which clear frosty weather imparts, I was prepared to do double the distance, If need were, to gratify my curiosity. But oh, these bush miles, how interminable they are! You set out on a journey of six miles; and after you have been walking briskly for two hours, you ask one of the natives how much further you have to go."Only five or six miles,"
is likely to be the answer, time after time, until you are reduced to a state of hopeless dejection; and begin to think that five or six miles are as along drawn out us the widow's curse. I had the ill luck to take a roundabout road; yet still it is some sort of satisfaction to be able to subscribe to the calculation that Chambers Creek is not more than eight miles; but then the tracks are across a country that to get over eight miles here requires more muscular exertion than eighteen would were the ground tolerably level. Hawkins Hill cannot be much more than a mile; but an average walker will have his work cut out if he climbs from the bottom to the top in much less than an hour. And as for getting down; that may be more expeditiously done, but the task is infinitely worse. How you long for some break power that would relieve you of a little of the strain, but that's a luxury confined to travelling on wheels. The steepness of the descent is such that every nerve of your legs is jarred almost beyond endurance, and at the bottom of the steepest pinches many a poor wight has found himself involuntarily dropping on his knees in an attitude of devotion. Well this is a sample of the kind of road you will have to traverse, in going to Chambers Creek; and, if when, you find it necessary to look after"that little interest"
you have out there, an enemy suggests walking to Chambers Creek ~~ remember the warning of one who has tried it. Let me apply to any such insidious proposal Punch's advice to persons about to marry ~~"Don’t."
Chambers 'Creek looks best at a distance. Perhaps it is owing to the tedium of the journey that one is disposed to think the township will not bear inspection, but, from whatever cause, the general attractions of the place are diminished on close acquaintance to a superficial observer. If you wish to enjoy the beauty of the Macquarie as the river winds along between deep gorges which often over shadow its glassy surface, or, listen to the music of the current when it rushes swifter over broad shallow beds of shingle ~~ you will of course go on horseback, and, thus get leisure to survey anything worth looking at; and if your thoughts are turning on quartz, it is perhaps, after all, not so much matter how you go, so long as you get there. I believe there are a couple of stores in the place, and was told that there is a good road by which supplies are obtained from Bathurst. The advent of a butcher, a week or two ago, was a red letter day in the annals of Chambers Creek; and when the people get the still further luxury of a post-office, I am not sure that arrangements will not be immediately set on foot for firing a grand"dhrop of the creathur"
is to be had before they are opened. Preparations are being made for the erection of a crushing-machine which is said to be on the way from Bathurst, and sites have been applied for"tongues "
on these trees are not always models, of grammar or orthography. There are two lines of reef at Chambers Creek upon which shafts are being sunk, and into which tunnels are being driven. These, of course, run north and south, and the distance between them cannot be much more than 100 yards in many places. The most easterly line is called the General Bourke, and the other the Nuggetty Reef. West of the Nuggetty line again there is a third vein, called the Kurrajong, upon which three or four shafts have just been started. On the site of two or three claims which are now being worked by companies, two or three small parties of miners have been working for eighteen months or two years; and they managed to"knock out"
wages by breaking the quartz up by hand labour. With these exceptions, mining at Chambers Creek is not more than twelve months old; and the majority of the claims have not been worked more than six. The rock here is generally of the same tough nature as the hard blue stone which I have mentioned as occurring at Hawkins Hill, and, under these circumstances, you may readily imagine, sufficient time has not elapsed to thoroughly test the ground. Gold has been struck in a great many claims; but in very few instances have crushings been had, and therefore I do not feel at liberty to enlarge upon the auriferous quality of the stone. By this time I must have seen some hundreds of specimens of stone from different mines, and been told almost to a pennyweight what each will yield to the ton; but, as it appears to me, all these prognostications are based upon insufficient data, I might almost say upon no data. The best test of the value of quartz is the crushing, and that not of a small bit picked out of a heap, but of the mass. It is easy to understand how a sanguine man who has an idea of putting his claim into a company will see eight and ten ounces to the ton, where another man of an opposite temperament and conflicting interests will fail to discover us many pennyweights. A consideration of these and other circumstances has induced me to refrain from saying anything about the stone which is being raised; but from this it need not be inferred that the mines will not turn out well, any more than that they will prove as rich as the best of those on Hawkins Hill upon which a large amount of time and labour had to be expended before they came to the rich lodes which are now realizing such splendid results. If I should happen to say anything about the probable yield per ton, your readers will do well to bear in mind that I am not giving my own opinion, but simply recording the estimate of the parties particularly interested. In some cases I have thought that the claimholders have taken a rose-coloured view of their prospects. In only one or two instances, however, at most have I had reason to suspect any deliberate intention to mislead. That is a department of the mining business which will flourish for a time in large populations at a distance; but, as a rule, the men who do the actual work of mining are thoroughly straightforward. I will now proceed to enumerate the claims I visited at Chambers Creek.