8

H.-17

to 31st March, 1881—an average of £82 7s. 6d. per man. In Victoria, the average for the four years ended 31st December, 1880, is £80 15s. per man. £82 7s. 6d. a year, or £1 lis. Bd. a week, would be a low average wage for men residing in a colonial town, but the miners, more especially the alluvial miners (and they greatly preponderate in number), reside in the vicinity of their workings, rent free, and, if they choose, on a residence area of one acre. On the West Coast and at the Thames firewood is abundant, and in Otago there are the lignite deposits side by side with the gold. Subject to regulations, there are more than ten million acres of Crown lands over which the miners have the right to search and mine for gold, and to occupy whatever portion they may select for mining or residence purposes. Eor these privileges there is the annual payment of £1 for miners' right, £1 an acre of rent for ground held on mining lease, also registration fees of water-rights and other mining property which are almost nominal, and there is the gold export duty of 2s. an oz., which, although not paid by the miners directly, is none the less so indirectly These various items amount to an average contribution per miner of about £3 a year, or a total of £49,000 for the year The collection of this revenue and the expense of administration of the gold fields is at the sole charge of the Government, but the revenue collected is paid over to the funds of the county within which it arises. Many of the miners have entered into farms or have interests in cattle, and still prosecute mining for a portion of the year at least. The search for gold has been the occasion of leading men into the country, and the result has supplied them with the means of settling it. There is a great deal yet to be done in this way, more especially on the west coast of the Middle Island, where there are extensive districts that, as they get opened up by roads, Avill afford thrifty men the opportunity of settling down and drawing on the auriferous deposits from time to time. All along the coast-line, from Cape Earewell to Milford Sound, there are to be found hardy pioneers who, in pursuit of gold and adventure, have settled down in some favourite spot, and in their independent mode of life find a charm which more than compensates for its solitude and isolation. Alluvial Mining. Erom this source fully two-thirds of the year's return of gold was obtained, and the balance from quartz and cement crushings. The returns from these two classes of mining have maintained about the same proportion for several years. The vast extent of the auriferous gravels, extending as they do in the valleys and terraces over an area of country of upwards of ten million acres, will maintain the pre-eminence of this class of mining in New Zealand for many years to come. Water for sluicing and washing the deposits is an indispensable requisite in alluvial mining, and that is always attainable in abundance in the natural supplies of the country The extent to which this has been availed of is manifest in the statistics of Table No. 12, from which it will appear that upwards of 5,000 miles of water-races have been constructed by the miners, at an estimated cost, with their attendant tail-races and dams, of nearly £800,000. This is exclusive of Government water-races and dams, which cost £450,000. Ground-sluicing is the favourite mode of alluvial mining, and, with a plentiful supply of water and a good fall for tail-race, it is the most profitable and certain in its results, even in ground that would be far too poor to work by any other method. It is a most destructive process, for the claim being once opened out to the depth of the layer of auriferous drift, the water, with a head of 80 or 100 or more feet, is directed through a hose and nozzle against the face of the claim, which it cuts into, undermining hundreds of tons of stuff in a few hours, which keeps falling in and is passed on in a muddy stream through the long line of tailrace, where the particles of gold settle by their gravity In this way the crust of the earth is washed away to depths of from a few feet to over a hundred. The value of gold obtained from a sluicing claim varies from a few hundred pounds sterling to many thousand pounds per acre. The magnitude of the sluicing operations soon destroys the natural fall of the tail-race by the accumulation of spoil at its lower end. Many expedients are had