The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-08 00:00:00

M.A.B7(NT INTELLIGENCE.

(Front the London New Price Current of this day.)
SUGAR.—Of West India supply is not ample for the
wants of growers or refiners, and rather higher prices are
paid—low 'to fine brown realising 32s 6d to 35s ; yellow,
35s Ed to 39s ; and grey, 33s 6d. to 38s per cwt. At auc-
tion to-day 285 hhds, 2 tierces, 14 brls Barbadoes went
readily at very full terms—fine yellow, 39s to 39s 6d ; mid-
dling to good, 37s to 38s 6d ; ordinary, 36s to 36s 6d ; 90
13148, 30 tierces, 131 brie, 30 bags Demerara chrystalised,

AUSTRALIAN GOLD FIELDS.

The Ceylon Times of the 18th Jan., which has
come to hand this morning, contains the following
interesting particulars, copied from the Maitland
Mercury, respecting the state and prospects of
some of the northern gold fields
We have been obliged with information by a
perfectly reliable party, which appears to us to settle
the doubts as to the character of the Bingera gold
field, so far as it has yet been proved.
Some seven weeks since a practised Turon and
Tambaroura digger, a resident of Maitland, was
induced by the exciting accounts of the success of
the Bingera field, which reached Maitland from
Sydney, to proceed to Bingera himself, to see
whether it would be worth while to take a claim
and. work. He went by way of the Hanging Rock
diggings. When he reached Bingera he found
that out of some 200 persons scattered about, there
were about a dozen or more parties, eaeh of three,
four, or five men, who were making from two to
four ounces per day, but that the others were doing
little or nothing ; great numbers arrived every day
during his stay, and about as many left every day.
disappointed. He found on inquiry, and on work-
ing himself, that the productive ground was con-
fined to a very small space on the forest land, and
was even there purely surface diggings, the gold
commencing among the very roots of the grass,
and in most of the good claims extending not
deeper than nine inches in profitable quantity, and
in none of the claims going lower than three feet
from the surface ; the most profitable of all, the
Bl acksmith's Claim, which lay in a kind of shallow
gully, ceasing at three feet. All round the limited
r!ich ground wore holes sunk and being worked,
many by thoroughly practised hands, and they
yielded very little, not above 15 grains of gold per
day, and as carting the stuff to water cost 45.. per
load, none of the parties were working to
profit except those on the small isolated spot
of rich ground. Numbers of persons were
tout prospecting all round, many of whom told
•our informant that they had run the creeks down
to the Big River, and had prospected on the Big
River itself, finding gold in small specks every-
where they tried, but in such minute quantities
that it was not profitable to work. Our informant
himself ran down one of the creeks six miles, and
his trials yielded precisely the same result, gold
everywhere, more or less, but in too small a quan-
tity to be profitable ; in one case our inform-
ant washed out some stuff from off the bed rock,
a hole having been sunk 18 feet to it, and he did
not get a speck of gold. The conclusion on his own
mind, after five days' thorough inquiry and ex-
amination, was that the country presented every
appearance of being auriferous ; that the productive
part yet found must very shortly be worked out
and abandoned ; that up to that time, rather more
than a fortnight ago, no other productive place
than the original small one had been found ; that
its yield had been greatly exaggerated by report ;
and that prospecting for further rich spots could
only be well prosecuted by parties from the imme-
diate neighbourhood, who could take advantage of
transient rains to wash the trial stuff in many dif-
ferent places. He does not doubt the possibility,of
other rich spots being found, or even that eventually
profitable winter diggings may be discovered in the
neighbourhood, but he is not at all satisfied that
they will be found, thinking it quite a matter of
doubt.

But our informant has formed a very different
conclusion as to the Hanging Rock diggings. He
found about the Hanging Rock creeks that many
parties were doing well, one party having obtained
27 omices in a day ; and that on the Peel diggings,
on the A. A. Company's estate, say eight miles from
the Hanging Rock, the diggings were very rich and
profitable. The disputes as to the right, or rather
power of the A. A. Company to prevent by force
diggers ftom working these alluvial diggings, pre-
vented our informant from seeking to work there,
but he saw several places in the neighbourhood of
the Hanging Rock where he would willingly have
obtained claims and worked, had it not been that
the abundance of water prevented the hope of pro-
fitable working for some time. Great numbers of
the disappointed Bingera diggers came back by
way of the Hanging Rock, as did our informant ;
and very many of them immediately set to work,
the greater part going to the Peel diggings on the
A. A. Company's land. Our informant satisfied
himself, by personal examination, of the great
richness of these diggings, and of the immense
wealth apparently contained in the celebrated
quartz ridge on the land, the gold in the quartz
being universally diffused, and quite plain to the
eye, and in his opinion the immediate banks and
bed of the Peel itself, in that neighbourhood, will
prove very
rich in gold when the water has les-
sened. But even supposing the company succeed
in preventing diggers from working the alluvial
diggings on their estates, the neighbourhood of the
Hanging Rock affords so many profitable spots that
great quantities of gold will be produced at these
diggings during the ensuing summer.

NATIONAL FOLLY.—The French are said to feel hurt
because when all the great powers of Europe were againts
them, it was their lot to sustain a defeat forty years
ago. The Persians beat them in absurdity. They still
suffer for the overthrow of Darius, and mar their history
by ridiculous fictions intended to cover that melancholy
accident to their national glory.
THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON'S TO3ll3.—Yesterday
his Royal Highness Prince Albert visited St. Paul's
Cathedral, and inspected the proposed site for the tomb
of the late Duke of Wellington. At the period of the
funeral of the duke it was intended that the remains of
the illustrious hero should rest by the side of Nelson.
The position of several vaults in the crypt contigious to
to the sarcophagus containing Nelson rendered that plan
somewhat difficult to carry out, and after some delibera-
tion with the relatives of the duke, her Majesty's Go-
vernment, and the Dean and Chapter, it was proposed to
place the tomb of Wellington at the east end of the centre
crypt, immediately under the entrance to the choir, and
midway between the monuments of Nelson and Corn-
wallis—subject to her Majesty's approval. For that
purpose his Royal Highness arrived between ten and
eleven, and, accompanied by the Very Rev. the Dean,
Dr. Milman, proceeded down into the crypt. The
Prince having taken a careful survey of the spot intended
for the erection of the tomb, and expressed, as we were
informed, his approval of the site, returned to the inte-
rior of the cathedral. His Royal Higness's attention
was then drawn to the arrangements for restoring the
paintings of the dome, and after having closely looked
into the details for carrying out the restoration and ex-
amining a model of the plan by which Mr. Parris con-
templates the completion of the work, his Royal High-
ness left the cathedral.