Guinea
coast, across the Straits and the Arafura Sea, and eastward from New
Guinea to New Britain and the Solomon." There should be promise of a
permanent and lucrative future for the trade; but all the old
station-holders grumble. It is certain that now-a-days a great deal of
capital has to be expended, and that the returns do no more than
recompense the time and tact necessary in supervision. There are no
rapid fortunes made as in the days when shell was worth £200 a ton and
expenses were slight, naked divers fetching up the spoil from the deep,
risking their lives at every plunge. Now the divers walk along the
bottom in the latest dress, ugly enough to scare away all sharks and
devil-fish. They now, too, know the value of the pearls, and, should
any choice ones be discovered in the shells, there is little chance^ of
the owners of the boats getting them. But the old hands grumble
principally, 1 think, with the hope of keeping away competition. You
may take up a good station on an island in the Straits, and in that
respect have great advantages over your rivals, but the waters and
reefs are free to all. Rival fishing boats can anchor side by side, and
often do so, and when one strikes a new patch of good shell" there is
often considerable ingenuity displayed in endeavouring to deceive all
other comers. The pearl-fishery now is certainly not the good thing it
was to a few Sydney capitalists, but a great deal of money is now
circulated amongst the many in Torres Straits, and the industry is not
by any means played out.
Gold in Ceylon.—We
have within the last few days had a second visit from Mr. Harvey of
Australian goldmining repute, who called here on his way "from
Melbourne to Southern India with a party of miners from Victoria, whose
services he has secured for one of the Wynaad Gold Companies, with
which he is connected. His visit to the gold fields of India will be
brief, probably for not more than two months, as he has other work in
view elsewhere. Mr. Harvey has not changed his opinion of the value of
the auriferous deposits in South India. He continues to speak of them
as formerly, as being of a varied character—a portion exceedingly rich,
a portion of indifferent quality, and another portion as likely to
prove worthless. The great difficulty in the Wynaad is the absence of
good roads, and Mr. Harvey is decidedly of opinion that a much smaller
percentage of the precious metal will pay in Ceylon than in India, in
consequence of our having such excellent roads in all direction?,
thereby lessening the cost of transport, and facilitating access to any
gold reefs that may be discovered. During his recent stay in Colombo
this gentleman examined a large number of quartz samples submitted to
him, the produce of different districts, and although the greater
portion of these were pronounced by him as cold and valueless, there
were others which immediately struck him as giving promise of some
practical results. These samples bore a strong resemblance to the
gold-yielding quartz of Southern India, having that peculiar colour
about them which betokens the presence of ore of some kind, in many
cases sulphur with appearances of copper. But of course an examination
with the eye is not sufficient to pronounce upon the probable value of
a small sample, and when Mr. Harvey was requested by one Colombo firm
to pay a visit to a district from which a very promising sample had
been taken, he pointed out the necessity first of a further exploration
of the locality, so as to expose a certain depth of the reef, to enable
him to come to something like a conclusion on the subject. Mr. Harvey
left by the Bombay steamer for Tuticorin whence he will proceed to the
Tambracherry estate, for which property he is chiefly acting, and for
which he is taking the miners engaged in Australia. During his absence
of six weeks or two months, explorations will be made in several
localities with a view of enabling him, on his return in February, to
give something like a practical opinion on the value of the samples
raised; and we may add that Mr. Harvey thinks it extremely probable
that gold may be found in Ceylon which, with our advantages, may be
worked to a profitable acccunt.—Local "Times."
