The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1870.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 107, 7 May 1870, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1870.

The erection at Collingwood of the first quartz crushing machine on the eastern side of the ranges, is an event which cannot be viewed with indifference by those interested in the welfare of the province. Eight-and-twenty years' experience has shown us that if Nelson is to take a prominent position among the provinces of New Zealand, it must be by the development of her mineral resources. Canterbury and Otago have their vast areas of rich arable land, Marlborough, though less favored in this respect, can boast of wide tracts of pastoral country, but Nelson must look for her prosperity to her mineral wealth, and to that alone. It is true we have room for a far larger agricultural population than we at present possess, but there will always, or at all events for some years to come, be a great drawback in the way of settling our waste lands owing to the want of roads by which the produce may be brought to market, aud this want is one that will not easily be remedied on account of the patches of land available for agricultural or pastoral pursuits being scattered at such wide intervals and separated from one another by wild and rugged country, over which the process of roadmaking must necessarily be a most expensive undertaking. The introduction then of a battery on so large a scale as that erected by the Perseverance Company may be looked upon as the commencement of a new era in the history of Nelson. Many and great were the difficulties to be overcome in the safe transit of the machinery to the site selected for its erection, but it has been shown that rough country, aud the absence of anything approaching to a well-made road, are not insurmountable obstacles when engineering skill and persevering energy are brought to bear upon the attainment of the object in view, and while we congratulate the Company and their engineer, to whose care was entrusted the conveyance to their destination and the placing in position of the ponderous masses of machinery, upon the well-earned success which has attended the undertaking, we are not disposed to look upon it in the narrow light of a benefit conferred only upon those immediately interested in the accomplishment of the work, but rather to view it as the first step taken in the direction of opening up a profitable industry, as yet in its infancy so far as this section of the Province is concerned, but which we hope to see expand to such an extent, that before many years, or even months, have passed over our heads, the valleys and hills which have hitherto been looked upon as, actually as well as nominally, " Waste Lands," will resound with the merry clank of the iron stampers as with irresistible force they compel the unpromising-looking stone to give forth its golden treasnre. For years past there has been a very general impression that eventually "something would turn up" at Collingwood, and the time seems now to have arrived when that indefinite " something" is to assume a tangible shape, and to vindicate the judgment of those who, notwithstanding the gloomy depression that has prevailed in that, in common with all other parts of the province, for so long a period, have still adhered to the opinion that those barren ranges were to prove a perfect mine of wealth. It would seem that their predictions are at last in a fair way of being verified. Gold, coppe^ and coal have been discovered in quantities which fully justify the belief that they wil' prove remunerative to the companies that have been formed to work them, and the general opinion now is that within twelve months from the present time, G-oldeu Bay

will be exhibiting symptoms of becoming one of the busiest mining districts in the colony. But our hopes for the future are not confined to Collingwood and its immediate vicinity. Mining operations at Wangapeka are at present in a state of coma, but those who have visited that district and are capable of forming an opinion on such subjects, are fully impressed with the belief that nothing but the introduction of machinery is required to prove to the most sceptical, that the quartz with which the country abounds is auriferous in the highest degree. With two such districts Nelson need not look forward with anything like despondency to the future in store for her.