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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 23

III. Mineral Development

III. Mineral Development.

In 1864 but little attention had been paid to the development of any mineral save gold and brown coal. Copper-mining had been tried, but with little practical result. The goldfields are not producing now so much as they did in previous years. There are many reasons to account for this. There is no doubt that the richer alluvial fields—the shallow alluvial workings—have been worked out, or at all events cannot sustain so large a population as in former years; secondly, the development of public works and of agriculture has drawn a great many persons who obtained a precarious livelihood in mining for gold to other pursuits giving a more certain wage; and, further, it requires considerable capital now to develop many of the gold-mines, and that can only be done when the population is considerably larger. The returns from all the gold-mines since the opening are as follows: 10,724,850oz., at a value of £4.2,368,192, and the amount exported during the year, 1884, was £988,953, showing a slight upward tendency from 1883, when the amount was £892,445; and at the present moment it seems as if there was considerable chance of further developments in mining enterprises. Many of the mines thought to have been exhausted are now being worked and returning handsome profits. In the North Island, especially in the Maori country, we may expect that there will be discoveries of gold.

Attention has also been paid to a kind of mining different to that which existed in 1864. Up to that time mining had been entirely alluvial, and generally in shallow workings; now there are large sluicing claims and considerable quartz-mining. There is also an improved method of separating gold from pyrites, and obtaining better results from quartz by various processes—such as smelting, &c. The number of quartz-mines in 1884 was, approximately, 200.

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The production of copper, had it not been for its great fall in price, would no doubt have been considerable; but, even with the fall that has taken place, attention is being paid in one or two districts to copper-mining. The utilization of the large quantities of iron-sand in the colony has been often tried, and is still in process of experimentation. The main development during the past twenty years has been in the production of coal. New Zealand is peculiarly situated in reference to coal; there is hardly a district in the colony which has not brown coalmines. Indeed, beginning at the ranges west of Christ-church and going to the Bluff, you can scarcely travel twenty miles without finding a brown coal-mine: the brown coal is distributed over such a large area of the South Island. In the Provincial District of Auckland, too, from the Bay of Islands down to the Waikato, there are large deposits of brown coal, some of a very superior quality; and these have been and are being worked. In the Mokau River there is a large coal deposit, and coal has been reported from the Wanganui River. The produce of the coal-mines in 1864 was, approximately, 10,000 tons, but it has gradually mounted up to 480,831 tons in 1884, as will be seen from the following statement showing the amount produced each year for the last seven years:—
Tons
1878 162,218
1879 231,218
1880 299,923
1881 337,262
1882 378,272
1883 421,764
1884 480,831

On the west coast of the Middle Island there are enormous deposits, thousands of acres of carboniferous land, with seams of more than twenty feet in depth, of the finest steam coal in the world. There is also magnificent gas coal at Greymouth. The area of the coalfields of Westport and Grey may be said to amount to 129,000 acres; and, as the great drawback hitherto has been the want of proper harbour accommodation for vessels to take page 24 away the coal, provision has been made for the construction of two harbours—one at Westport and one at Grey—to provide accommodation for steam colliers. These harbours are being constructed in accordance with the plans of Sir John Coode, and, so far as their construction has proceeded, there seems every chance of a considerable depth of water being obtained. One harbour is at the mouth of a large river—the Buller—and the other at the mouth of the Grey River. The production of true coal has largely increased; it amounted to 418,101 tons in 1884. At the same time, New Zealand, owing to the intercolonial steamers having to take return freight from Sydney, and doing it at a cheap rate, largely imports coal from Newcastle, New South Wales. Newcastle coal, however, cannot compare with the Westport or Grey Valley coal, and does not fetch such high prices, the retail prices being—Newcastle coal, on an average, about 32s. to 35s. a ton; Westport coal, 34s. to 36s. a ton; and Grey Valley coal, 33s. to 36s. 6d. a ton.

There is also great probability that attention will be paid to other mineral developments in New Zealand—viz., silver, shale, copper, tin, and other minerals. The region of Collingwood, in the north-west of Nelson, and the whole region of Westland, and the west part of Otago, west of Wakatipu, may be termed mineral regions, which, through their inaccessibility, and being mainly timber-lands, can hardly be said to have been prospected, and the Thames and Te Aroha Districts in Auckland are mineral, with gold, silver, and lead in abundance.