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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Canterbury Provincial District]

Mining

Mining.

The most important of all forms of mining is practically non-existent in Canterbury. There is no gold deposit of any value so located that it can be profitably worked. Large bonuses have been offered for the discovery and working of a payable lode, but hitherto with no results. Gold has been found in many reefs along the upper courses of the Wilberforce and the Harper (tributaries of the Rakaia), but always in practically inaccessible country. Attempts have been made to “pick up” the reefs that are assumed to run back from the Taipo and Teremakau Valleys through the main range, but so far without success. That there must be gold at the sources of the great Canterbury rivers is further proved by the occurrence of gold dust in the sand along the Ninety Mile Beach. Here a good many claims have been worked in a desultory and experimental fashion, but so far without establishing any permanent gold washing industry. There seems, however, to be a future before the Ninety Mile Beach as a dredging ground. Mr. W. Skey, Government Analyst, reported in 1897 that fourteen samples averaged eleven grains to the ton. Two of the samples went as high as one pennyweight sixteen grains, and nine ran to sixteen grains per ton. Two grains of gold per load would certainly pay, with modern dredging appliances, as the gold lies in ruby sand, from which it is easily separated. Anything over 1d per load is profit with a good dredge; and 4d a load would be the average return from this sand. The formation is very deep; boring has been carried to a depth of forty feet without reaching bottom. There thus seems to be every reason for the establishment of a successful dredging industry on the beach.

Infinitely the most valuable of Canterbury's mineral products is coal. Brown coal is found, among other places, at the Malvern Hills, Homebush, Whitecliffs, Springfield, Mount Somers, and Albury. Lignite is of fairly common occurrence. For 1899 the total output from fifteen collieries, employing about fifty hands, was 14,192 tons, bringing the total amount raised from twenty-four collieries, up to the 31st of December, 1899, to 379,881 tons. The seams worked vary from sixteen feet to two feet three inches, the average width being about eight feet. For purposes of comparison, it may be noted that the total output of coal for New Zealand in 1899 was 975,234 tons. Of this the Westland mines produced 521,707 tons, the Auckland mines 141,128 tons, and the Otago mines 297,967 tons. Canterbury coal mining thus plays but a small part in the New Zealand coal industry.

Canterbury is well supplied with valuable building stones. The Halswell quarries produce a very hard and close grained dull grey rock, which has been largely used in Christchurch for building purposes. Good limestone is found at Waikari, Malvern Hills, and Mount Somers. A blue stone, known from the place of its origin as “Timaru stone,” is used for building and for millstones.

Of other forms of mineral wealth it may be worth noting that the “Alford Forest diamonds,” about which much excitement has occasionally been raised, are worthless crystals, and that opals of some value have been found on the Upper Ashburton.