I stumbled across a couple of interesting facts recently.
The Klondike, Otago and the West Coast goldfields.
The Otago goldfields yielded over 95 tons and the West Coast goldfields 105 tons. Both yielded more than
twice the amount as the Klondike. (I assume this was over a certain number of years but I cannot find reference to that. All three gold fields are still yielding gold.)
California andTuapeka Goldfields
In the first 21 months the Tuapeka Goldfield (550,000 oz) was richer than the California Goldfield (503,000
oz.)
I attach details of the comparison between California and Tuapeka. One could argue the methods of measurement etc but it does show that the South Island of little old NZ had goldfields that were significant.Tuapeka Goldfield riches26018.pdf (1.4 MB)
Old Nic McArthur, he is a good bloke…Old reports talk about gold caught in pyrites and suggest a mean of 5.6g per ton of the cement. One report suggested 300million oz in crystal form alone in the goldfield
Gabriel’s Gully has been thrashed but the Tuapeka Goldfields as a whole has barely been scratched.
The whereabout if extremely rich deposits are known and yet have hardly been mined, and in some instances have not been mined at all.
The Waipori Deep Lead was mined, but not mined out but other equally as rich leads, if not richer have not been touched at all.
I never knew of that thesis. I would love to read it in it’s entirety.
Nic McArthur’s document is a very interesting and well researched thesis. It covers a lot of ground and explains the methods of finding gold from simple panning to reef mining to hydraulic elevators etc. Also covers the history of all the major gold discoveries from the earliest days until the late 19th century. Certainly a lot of reading, but not hard to read and very informative.