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254 the discoveries which preceded them. Kumara, on the other hand, was for years the most prosperous alluvial goldfield in the Colony.

Of this famous goldmining centre, W. J. M. Larnach (“Handbook of New Zealand Mines, 1887”) says: “The township of Kumara with its broad, quiet streets, gives little idea of a busy digging town, but the mining population is to be found a mile or two away at Dillman’s Town, and the operations are carried on in the neighbourhood of that centre, and at Larrikins, Dunedin Flat, and other localities thereabout. Before Kumara became a goldfield, 1,000 acres of land had been set aside as an Education Reserve, and a large part of the town was built thereon, a considerable revenue being derived from rents and charges against mining privileges granted over the reserve. It was not long, however, before the rents, which in the heyday of the first excitement were readily offered for building leases, began to prove too onerous for the quieter course of business which supervened, and much agitation and negotiation followed for the purpose of procuring a modification of the terms on which the leases were held. The question was at length set at rest by the Kumara Education Reserve Act of 1879, which brought the area in question under the operation of the mining laws and regulations, many of the leaseholds being converted into freeholds.”