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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 66

Iron Ores

Iron Ores.

No iron mines are at present worked, though almost every known variety of iron ore has been discovered in the country; the workings being limited to the black sands, which occur plentifully on the coasts. page 44 There are also few soils or stream-gravels that will not yield a considerable quantity when washed. The chief deposits are, however, on the sea-shore of the west coast of both Islands, the best known being that at Taranaki.

Several companies have been formed both in England and the colony to manufacture steel direct from this ironsand. They have not, however, succeeded, but a partial success was attained by smelting, in furnaces, bricks formed of the ore with calcareous clay and carbonaceous matter, and recently the sand has been treated by a continuous cementation process that produces puddled blooms. It remains to be proved, however, if it can be profitably treated in large quantities by this or any other process. A company, called the New Zealand Iron and Steel Company, Limited, is now at work at Onehunga, for the purpose of making bar iron from the ironsand by a direct process, and has given notice of intention to claim the bonus of £1,000 offered by the Colonial Government for the production of 200 tons of wrought-iron blooms. According to the official returns, the iron exported from New Zealand since 1853 amounted to 207½ tons, valued at £1,066. The last shipment of this metal took place in 1869, and amounted to one ton.