Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/241

Rh exist in the mountains, and it is the height of a miner's ambition to find a well-filled one and secure its contents without anybody's help.

"The alluvial mines in North Island are less extensive than those of South Island. It is estimated that these mines cover an area of twenty thousand square miles in South Island alone, and as very little capital is required for working them, they are more popular than the others.



"The principal quartz-mines are in the Coromandel and Thames districts; the reefs have been prospected to six or eight hundred feet below the sea-level, and also to a height of two thousand feet above it. In some places the rock has yielded six hundred ounces to the ton; at least it has assayed to that extent, but the amount obtained upon working it in quantities is far less. Of course such rock as this is a rare exception in New Zealand as everywhere else.

"In the province of Otago there are rich reefs, and in some places gold has been found at elevations of six and seven thousand feet above the sea. The highest mine in New Zealand is on the summit of Advance Peak, near Lake Wakatipu, in South Island.

"The mines have been beneficial to the country in two ways: first