The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 40
Mining
Mining.
That which was originally the making of Westland—gold-mining—is now also its main industry. Although the population of Westland (about 12,000) is not now so large as in the first fervour of the great rush, the produce of gold has been maintained—a fact which speaks well for the permanency and richness of the district as a gold-producing country.
The quantity of gold exported from the port of Hokitika during the year 1879 was 54,203 ounces, value £216,933. The export for the quarters ending 31st March and 30th June, 1880, were respectively 14,275 ounces, value £57,098, and 13,383 ounces, value £53,533. The total quantity of gold exported from the West Coast, from the first discovery of gold to 30th June, 1880, amounted to 2,485,512 ounces, value £9,849,015.
A map of the County of Westland, prepared by Mr. Gerhard Mueller, chief surveyor, and forwarded to the Melbourne International Exhibition, shows the various localities where gold has been obtained. In no district thus marked, except in the case of Ross, has gold been worked to any considerable depth; so that it has been truly said that as yet the surface of the country has only been scratched over.
Reef and lode mining has hardly yet been entered upon in West-land, but many important and promising discoveries in this direction have been made. Thus, on the Taipo River, in the northern part of the district, quartz reefs, averaging about an ounce of gold to the ton, have been explored; and at Mount Rangitoto, south of Hokitika, a lode band occurs, carrying, besides auriferous pyrites, argentiferous galena, and zinc blende.
In the gorge of the Hokitika River a similar association of magnesian rocks occurs as that which characterises the copper and chrome mineral belts in Nelson, and the general geological structure of the country points to a recurrence throughout the district of isolated areas of a gold-bearing formation similar to that which has proved so rich at Reefton in the Nelson Province.