The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-03-11 00:00:00

VICTORIA

In the Victoria Parliament, very little business
of importance had been transacted. Matters or
purely local and colonial character having occupied
both houses. It was confidently expected that
Mr. B C. Aspinall would be appointed as Chair-
man of Committee ora the Assembly. Mr. Aspin-
all's powers of good humoured sarcasm had made a
remarkably favoarable impression on the house.
Several measures of importance were about
being introduced in the Assembly, and the Mel-
bourne Age, hopes
That a measure will be introduced for the better pre-
vention of the desertion of Merchant Seamen. The enor-
mous expenses frequently entailed upon shipowners by the
desertion of seamen upon arriving in the port of Melbourne
cause freights to he higher by fully fifty per cent. than they
otherwise would be. At present, the course usually pur-
sued in refererce to deserters upon their being captured is
to send thnn to gaol until the vessel in which they have
shipped for the voyage out and home is ready to start
on the homeward voyage when th.y are sent on board ;
but in the interim the necessity has arisen of employing
other hands in their place, and a ruinous expvmse, is thus
entailed upon the vessel. NotwithstanO.irg all the pre-
cautions taken by the officers of merchant vessels, desertion
prt vailed to a very great extent, and the facilities afforded
for trant't to the go!cl fields rendered it anything but an
easy task to capture the runaways. The rate of wages
current in the colony for seamen is about treble what it is
from London or Liverpool, and the majority of the men
who can be procured at Melbourne are far from being first
class seamen. As both houses of Parliament contain a very
fair proportion of the commercial element, we may
reasonably hope to see the attention of honourable members
shortly directed to an evil of such magnitude as that which
we have pointed out.

A Melbourne paper, in answer to enquiries as to
which was the best mode of travelling to the gold
fields, by recently arrived emigrants, says that—
The coaches perform the journey in three days, to ing
able to accomplish it by having nineteen relays of horses
upon the road The proprietors of the waggons, which
have no relays of horses, undertake verbally to perform the
journey in six or seven clays at the farthest, and as the fare
is smaller by about £2 than that charged by the c,raches,
many are induced by motives of economy to avail them-
selves of the apparently cheaper mode, but soon find to
their sorrow that they have adopted not only the most
inconvenient, but by far the most expensive, the journey
frequently lasting three weeks; and as the passengers have
to pay their exoenses upon the road, the whole of their
little capital is frequently absorbed before arriving at their
des•ination,

Operations have been commenced for deepening
the bed of the Yarra Yarn+. The steam dredge was
hard at work, and the harbour master had cautioned
masters and others in charge of steam vessels
plying there, not to proceed at more than half
speed. Masters of both steamers and sailing
vessels were also guarded against running foul of
the dredge or her anchors, the position of the latter
being indicated by red painted buoys

The settlers of the Western District. have
appointed an officer for the purpose of carrying
out the provisions of an Act passed, if we remem-
ber rightly, during the last session of the old
Legislature for preventing the spread of the scab
and catarrh in sheep Under the former Act,
scabby sheep were permitted to be driven across
the country under certain provisions during the
month of February only; but the present Act
prohibits them from being driven at all; notwith-
standing which, it is notorious that a considerable
number find. the;r way to Melbourne, and it is
more than probable that, on their journey
from the interior, they come in contact with
and infect other flocks. The salary of the
officer to whom we have alluded is proposed to be
paid by a small assessment per thousand upon the
sheep belonging to the settlers in the Western
District ; and if this system were followed in other
districts the act referred to, which is at present
almost a dead letter, might be carried out in its
integrity, and the frightful ravages of the scab and
catarrh certainly mitigated; although, we confess.
we have but small hopes of seeing them obliterated
from the land, until sheep farmers strike at the
root of the evil, by the introduction of fresh blood
amongst their flocks.
The Geelong and Melbourne railway on the
Geelong side was already completed for a distance
of fourteen miles, The company derive a weekly
income of £4O, for conveying metal from a quarry
in the vicinity of Cowie 's Creek ; and it is their
intention to construct a branch tramway from the
main line to Ration Peak Operations have
commenced on the Melbourne side to meet the
work half way ; and it is expected that the whole
length of the line will be completed, and made
eligible for traffic by next June.

The proposed sale of auriferous land at Bondigo
on the 30th December, had raised an amount of
agitation there that is almost unprecedented in the
Sandhurst district. A deputation had arrived in
Melbourne to represent to the Government the
absoulute necessity of doing justice to the diggers
by withdrawing from sale the lands in question.
A late Melbourne paper says:—

It is understood that the official statistical report of the
colony of Victoria, of which. Feveral thnusand copies were
got up with great care and expense on the formation of the
registrar general's department, are still ling packed up
in the government stores. This report was intended by Mr.
Latrobe, before his departure from the colony, to have been
sent to all the public libraries of the British dominions, in
order to disseminate a knowledge of the resources of
Victoria. Why has not the original intention been followed
up?
In the Melbourne County Court, an interesting
case had been tried, relative to the distribution of
a reward for the discovery of a gold field. Michel
and others in June, 1851, formed themselves into
a prospecting party, and proceeded to an exami-
nation of the quartz reefs on the banks of the Yarra
They were at first unsuccessful, but at length they
succeeded in discovering the Anderson's ' Creek
gold field. The reward was claimed and paid over
to Michel for himsplf and party. Plaintiff and others
did not ruceive a share of the reward to which they
claimed to be entitled ; arid several actions were
brought in tlae County Giurt, in which verdicts
were given for the plaintiffs. In the present case
the court came to the same decision The defence
rested in the averment that plaintiff did-not belong
to that party that really discovered the gold.
Several law points were, however, reserved for the
defendant.

The advices from the gold fields are very en-
couraging. Tho yield was still large, and the
miners generally in a prosperous condition.
Nuggets of extraordinary size and quality were
discovered, The Melbourne Age, of the
bl2etihngDdlyeaciember, says—

One of those remarkable finds, which now and then turn
up to excite the hopes of would-be diggers, is now most
temptingly exhihite(l in the window of the Messrs. Clarke,
gold brokers. E inbeth street. We ref,r to the monster
nugget lately found at Korong. These masses of pure gold
were found, as is usual wiqt all large nuggets at Korong
and its vicinity, at a very inconsiderable depth beneath the
surface, and in this instance within three feet of each other.
Their respective weights are .323 oz. 2 dwt. 12 grs., and
383 oz. 3 dwt. 12 grs., and their joint value is estimated at
about two thousand and eight hundred pounds sterling.

The two nuggets seem originally to have formed one large
elongated mass, as 'he gutterings and ridges !in their surer
face correspond ver; closely. It is remarkable that the
K,drong diggings, so prolific in large and easily acquired
nogg ts, should have been comparatively neglected. Pro-
bably this find may tempt many properly to develop the
resources of this richly auriferous district.

The same paper publishes the following para-
graph:— _ _

It has been intimated to us by Mr. Foord, assayer in the
gold office of the Messrs. Clarke, that an abundance of
metallic oxides, collected and sold under the general name of
black sand, do not necessarily contain the oxide of tin, and
that large quantities of titaniferous oxide of iron are in the
market under the mistaken impression that their submission
to the operation of the smelting furnace will result in the
production of the usual per centage of tin. The importance
of this information, bath to the finder and pur-
chaser, is sufficienti y manifest, when we inform
our readers Vtat the market value of the ore
is from £65 to £7O per ton ; that of the other
absolutely nothing. We ate further advised that the
valuable mineral yields the var3ing result of from forty to
seventy eight per cent of tia. It becomes necessary, there-
f tre, that all black sand should be properly assayed previous
to its purchase, otherwise it may be found, when teo late,
that large sums of money hale changed hands
to little purpose. We have had shown to us
samples of the two minerals, and though it is not difficult
to detect the difference when,they are placed in juxtaposi-
tion, their resemblance apart is so great as to render it
indispensably necessary to submit them to the operation of
of the assayer before their relative values can be determined,