The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 66
Gold and Silver
Gold and Silver.
Gold was discovered in 1842, less than three years from the foundation of the colony, but it was not practically worked until 1852, when the mines at Coromandel first attracted attention to the district of Cape Colville Peninsula, which still forms the chief centre of true lode-mining operations in New Zealand. The yield from those mines was up to 1880 over four and a half millions sterling, but is small when compared with the quantity of alluvial gold obtained in the South Island subsequent to 1861, at which date the goldfields of Otago became prominently known.