HISTORY OF GOLDFIELD

Hokitika Guardian, 30 March 1931, Page 2

HISTORY OF GOLDFIELD

PRESERVATION INLET REEFS. DEVELOPMENT BY AFCKLANDKR. Tho gold-h<'i-ring potentialities of tho Preservation In, been much djsc'usesd in a- ... on the strength ot tho observance.. of a party of geologists who weie lately on tour in the vicinity. It is, however, much more to the purpose (says the New Zealand Herald) to have the direct- testimony of the man who first began quartz-mining in the inlet, and broke out the lirst- trial crushing of the goldfield there—Mr Adam Thomsen, formerly of Thames, who lias for many years lived at Woodford road. Mount Eden. Air Thomson spent his boyhood at the Thames, served his apprenticeship t,o mining as a whinboy and trucker, qualified as a practical miner, and eventually mine manager—of tile Lorna Doone mine, Kennedy’s Bay—and finally quitted mining and practised in Auckland as a general contractor for 20 years, retiring from activitv in 1920.

When tl te Thames Miners’ Union was formed in 1890—more as a society for the insurance of the diggers against accident and sickness than as an industrial organisation in the modern sense—Mr Thomson was its first secretary. This office ho held until 1895, when he resigned it on receiving an appointment from a; Christchurch syndicate to proceed to Preservation Inlet and examine quartz-mining possibilities there, The inlet is the southern-most of the West Const sounds with Puvsegur Point, tho extreme south-west-ern cape of Otago, ns the south head of its entrance,

FISHING SETTLEMENT OF CROFTERS. A hour 40 years ago the then Government of New Zealand formed a project to establish a fishing industry at the Sounds, partly as a means of relieving some of the crofters of Scotland—small tenants of Highlands landlords whose distresses were at that period parallel to those of the inhabitants of Ireland, and were tho subject- of remedial legislation in the House of Commons at the hands of Mr Gladstone in the eighties.

For this purpose a. party of Highlanders was assisted out to Otago by New Zealand funds. At the inlet the Government laid out the town of Cromarty, naming it after the Scott ish shire from which the refugees had come. The fishermen were assisted with grants of land and with subsidies for the provision of gear. Owing, however, to tlie remoteness of Cromarty from the large centres and the difficulties of transporting the catch to a market, the fishing industry failed to flourish. When Mr Thomson and his prospecting party arrived at the inlet. Cromarty consisted of an hotel, a store, and n hoarding house—practically all the Scottish immigrants had drifted elsewhere.

Meanwhile it had become known that alluvial gold existed on the beaches and inlets o. du ml there had been .several <,; \\ '■ .: J.. uison describes as “steamboat nubes** to the inlet and to the nronimu y which separates it from Dusky Bay. Alluvial, however, was the only form of the precious metal that seems to have been thought of until the Christchurch syndicate conceived the idea of prospecting for the parent lodes, and rt

was with this object that Mr Thomson and two mates were sent down, On arrival they found at Wilson's River, some five miles inland from the inlet, another miring party, working what was known ns the Golden Site claim, and headed by Mr John Wilcox, who had been well known at Thames as manager of the New North Devon mine, Alburuia Hill First the Thomson party examined a proposition on Crayfish Island, which, however, was soon “duffered.” Then they applied themselves to a claim on thp main land, taken up by the same Canterbury proprietary, called the Morning Star, in which an outcrop of quartz had been unearthed on the summit on a spur. ORE WORTH '£2B A TON.

The scheme devised by Mr Thomson for testing the property was the driving of a tunnel about 60 feet below the outcrop for the intersection of the reef. Tn this work marked success was met with. The country rock of the district is of uniform slate forma-

tion, quite easily worked. Within a few weeks the reef was struck. It proved to be about three feet in Wjdtii comprising mu-bly quartz with wetl-Ueliiied wali-s, and gokl was well disseminated tinough it. Th e hanging wall portion consisted or a semd no about six inches illicit, and it was li-ere that the richest go.d was round. Unlike lliames gold, However, it, wa*s not (lotted tnrough the stone or running in threads, but at its best was or tlte appearance and thickness of a broad beau and entirely free from base metals, Under Mr Thomson’s managementenough driving was done upon tile met to break out a ton of ore, which was taken 'to Dunedin and treated in a Moody eruMier owned by Messrs A. T. Burt. It yielded (joz 17dwt ol gold, worth £4 3s per ounce. Satislied a.s to the value of its find, the company that had by this time- been formed decided that no further work should be done upon the reef until a battery had been provided on the spot. Accordingly a 10-head battery was purchased and .Mr G. P. Hilton, who had been manager of the big MoaYiatairi battery at ’Thames, carried out its erection.

The company wished Mr Thomson and his party to drive another level lower down the i illside for the further proving of the lode. Two members of the party, however, were unable to stay in tlic district, and left for their homos, Mr Thomson himself, alter 12 months, returned to Auckland and entered upon his career as a contractor. The success of the Morning Star as a matter of course l e d to the opening of other mines in the district, but Mr 'Thomson can fairly claim to have been the “prospector’’ of the inlet in quartz mining, as the term is understood among miners.

FURTHER HISTORY OF DISTRICT. Tho records of the Mines Department. show that in the year ended March 31, 1898, the Morning Star mine was working the reef at four levels—three adito and another level opened up from a winze sunk from the lowest adit, In the year it crushed 3,654 tons of ore for a return of 5,384 ounces of gold, and paid to its shareholders £8,421 in dividends. There were at this time five other mines in operation in the district, but the Morning Star was the only gold producer. The reports of the immediately succeeding years show that by 1903 all the payable ore in sight at tlie Morning Star had been worked out, and both the pioneer mine and the district in general faded out of mining history early in the present centurv.

The optimistic opinion expressed hy the scientists as to tlie wealth yet undeveloped in the Sounds district i fi fully endorsed by Mr Thomson. Prolessor Keble, -of Melbourne, for instance *ha,s said that “in no part of of New Zealand is there such promise of rich results as in the vicinity of Preservation Inlet.” The country, however, .presents formidable difficulties to the prospector. The surface of the lulls is heavily overlaid with decayed vegetable matter, the accumulation of ages, sometimes to the depth of 10 feet- and l:} feet, so that it is difficult to form the trenches that are usually cut across the known general strike of reefs to discover the whereabouts pf their outcrops. Mr Thomson is aware of the extension of the slates of the inlet along the coast to the north of it and away on beyond Dusky Hay, and considers that if capital were applied to the exploitation of the region the eventual , results would he greatly to the ;, d- i vantage of the Dominion. )