Miscellaneous. 479 
mistake—and with the specimens actually before us we do not see 
how there can be—a new deposit, superior even to the Cornstock 
lode, which has furnished so many millions of silver, is about to 
pour into our market its limitless supply of this precious metal. — 
New York Journal of Commerce. 
Tue New ZEALAND GOLD-FIELDS.—The Argus of April 27, 1865, 
states that further intelligence from the Okitiki district only confirms 
the opinion before expressed, that too many men had proceeded thither, 
and that a large proportion of them would have to leave it before 
the winter sets in. There is no doubt of extensive fields being ulti- 
mately opened within a few miles of the coast; but the difficulty of 
getting through the country is so great, and provisions are so dear 
at all the outlying places, that men without a good supply of money 
need not go prospecting. The climate, too, is very wet; and this 
much increases the hardship to those not well provided with tents 
and other requisites. The men at work appear to be getting good 
returns; but the question with one-half the late arrivals is, how they 
are to get away again. And without money to pay their passage by 
sea, the answer is not easy, for the track over the mountains has 
become almost impossible in places, and those who attempt it suffer 
much, if they succeed in getting through at all. In the Otago district, 
there appears no lack of work for those inclined to stick to it, and seve- 
ral cases of more than ordinary success are mentioned. A well-defined 
and regular lead of gold is said to have been opened in the Cardrona 
Valley, and some of the claims on it are rich. The mountains being 
almost clear of snow, the rivers are expected to be unusually low 
this winter, and it is hoped that much gold will be got from the 
Molyneaux, not only out of the bed of the river, but also out of the 
banks, for some of the richest deposits lately found were at some 
distance above the present limits of the stream. 
MANUFACTURE OF PARAFFINE-OIL.— Public attention has already 
been directed to the discovery, in different parts of the colony, 
of the mineral from which paraffine-oil—more commonly known 
as kerosene-oil—can be obtained. Near Hartley, and also near 
Wollongong, extensive seams of this mineral have been found, 
differing considerably from each other in appearance, in fracture, 
and in yield, but both available for the manufacture of this now 
universally used luminating fluid. The seam near Hartley (dis- 
covered in consequence of some pieces of the mineral outcrop- 
ping in the alluvium) is five and a half feet in thickness, and is 
worked through a tunnel; its situation is in the Vale of Clwyd, about 
four miles from Little Hartley. The railway to Bathurst, now in 
course of formation, will cross the Darling Causeway a little more 
than a mile from the spot. The mineral is of a dark-brownish 
colour ; it is extremely tough, so that if struck with a hammer the 
instrument will bound off as it would from a block of wood; it has 
a conchoidal fracture, and does not powder when broken. It is 
stated that this mineral resembles that worked in Scotland, and 
known as Bog-head Coal, which for gas-making was estimated to be 
six and a half times the value of ordinary coal, and which had been 
