The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1859-10-11 00:00:00

Files at papers have been received from Melbourne to
the 18th of August, and from Sydney to the 13th of
August.
We take the following from the " Summary for
Europe" of the Argus :

GOLD

lILLDS.

Although the escorts of the lest few weeks have been
below what the average ought to be at this season of
the year, there is no reason to fear that the yield of
...old has fallen off, or that the returns will continue so
row for any length of time. From nearly all the differ-
ent fields the accounts are good. No very extraordinary
discoveries have been made ; but the miners generally
are fully employed, and there are no complaints of any-
thing more than the usual and expected want of success
in a pursuit which must partake more or less of the
character of a lottery when followed by detached
parties rushing hither and thither on the chance of
gutting a share of what is almost accidentally obtained,
if not on one occasion, why, probably on another. The
it rage for companies, though t will not. perhaps,
be Mil advantageots in all other respects, will at least
have the effect of rendering more settled a large portion
of our mining population, and of providing these mei,
with machinery of a kind which they would otherwise
not be likely to have the use of for a considt ruble time
to come. Water also will be supplied in abundance to
many districts, while the struggling and least fortunate
of the miners have now to leave in great numbers every
summer, because without this element it is impossible to
obtain it living. Not only will an alnitultnon, of water
allow of touch alluvial ground being worked all the year
round, which has now to be abandoned during one-half
that period, but it will allow cif the work being
done more thoroughly, and of the fine gold being saved,
which now flows away in the thick sludge in such a
large proportion that, with suitable machinery and ap-
plianees, it could doubtlessly be extracted with profit.
Such has long been the opinion of many persons who
have given attention to the subject, and in this belief
application has been made to the municipal council of
Sandhurst for permission to erect machinery within their
boundaries, fur the purpose of extracting the gold from
the sludge. It has also been proposed in other places to
erect steam-driven machinery of the must approved kind
to wash out and reduce alluvial soil for detached parties
of millers, at so much per load or ton, as is now done,
with quartz at the stamping mills erected for the use of
the public. There is no reason why this system should
not answer as well in one branch of the business as the
other, and be as beneficial to the owners, the puddlers,
and the country at large, as has been the erection of
powerful and efficient crushing mills to the reefing inte-
rests and all connected therewith. The puddling-mills,
which are yet in general use, are most clumsy, iuccono-
mic contrivances, doing their work slowly and ineffectu-
ally, and at a great comparative expense to their own-
ers, bearing out the rule that horse-power badly applied
must always be dear in comparison with the concentrated
power of steam. The mode of working the ground in
some parts of the country is also in f.vour of this system,
for it ni becoming much the fashion to tunnel the hills
to a great extent, from the sides nearest to the water,
and run down the alluvial soil on tramways, three or
four of which could be led into the machinery erected to
wash for the proprietors of all. Gold is now extracted
from quartz about one-tenth of what the cost was when
this branch of mining was is, • similar state to that of
poddliug at present, and there is no valid reason why as
great a saving may not be effected irk extracting the fine
gold from alluvial soil by the aid of superior machinery
and abundant water artificially supplied. There is a tine
opening on the goldfields for the display of a great
I amount of engineering and mechanical skill, and thither it
I will be directed by the formation of the many companies
I now springing into existence, and we trust much to the
ultimate benefit of the miners as • class and to the in-
crease of our weekly escorts.