during the last several months, and the population has almost deserted them. At one time there must have been nearly 2,000 persons on Major's and Bell's Creeks and at Araluen; but at present there are not, at most, more than 500. The average earnings at these diggings approximate to those at the Turon, and, as at the latter place, many instances of surprising good fortune have occurred. At Mungarlow, some fifteen or twenty miles from Major's Creek, remunerative diggings have been opened, and several nuggets have been found weighing up to eight or ten ounces. At the Braidwood diggings the gold is generally fine, and it is reckoned to be very pure. Dry diggings have been opened on Major's Creek, in which many parties are procuring four or five ounces of gold a day.
About thirty miles north of the Turon are the Meroo diggings. The Meroo is a river somewhat resembling the Turon in its general features, and in its banks and bars large deposits of gold have been found. The geological character of the country is similar to that of the Turon. The diggings already opened here extend several miles along the river. The yield of gold is generally large, and the gold itself coarse, with occasional large nuggets. Several points on the Meroo have turned out uncommonly rich. The golden reputation of the Meroo itself, however, is small in comparison to that of one of its tributary creeks, the Louisa, on
GOLD WASHING.
whose banks such extraordinary masses of the precious metal have been found, and where the great nugget vein lies. The country about the Louisa is generally of a flat description, and the declivities of the creeks are mild. Mr. Green, assistant commissioner, in a report on the Western Gold Fields, has expressed his opinion that the auriferous ground available for dry diggings at this creek extends for several miles to Campbell's Creek, and that on the tableland, of which
