MINING AND GEOLOGY IN AUSTRALASIA. 299 



£169,000, copper £140,000, and tin £52,750, making a total of 

 £1,303,075 for fifty years' work. West Australia was just then 

 entering- on its career of prosperity as the chief producer of gold for 

 a long period of years, but only during the previous two yeai's had 

 any indication been given of the great future before it, as most of the 

 gold now credited to it had been obtained during those years. 



Tasmania. — The little island lying south of the south-eastern 

 corner of the continent of Australia was settled comparatively soon 

 after the discovery of the Straits which separated it from the main 

 land, but for a pui'pose which was not conducive to the development 

 of the mining industry, and, therefore^, not much was heard of its 

 mineral resources until several years after the attention of the people 

 was dii'ected to the subject of mining for gold in Victoria and New 

 South Wales. But, although their published tables commence with 

 the year 18S0, it is evident that a considerable amount of mining was 

 done previous to that time, but for gold and other minerals, a 

 diagrammatic representation of the output being given in one of the 

 subsequent reports without the corresponding figTires. The amounts 

 given previous to 1893 are: Gold, £2,101,920; coal, £298,647; tin, 

 £4,796,877; silver, lead, &c., £335,765 ; and unenumerated, £31,988; 

 making a total of £7,625,197. Already giving promise of a w^ealth of 

 tin — although her promise of the silver and copper was not so 

 apparent. The diagrammatic representation of the output includes 

 for the period antecedent to 1880, gold, silver, tin, and copper; and 

 aggregates slightly under half a million sterling. The output had 

 thus amounted to about eight millions sterling. Gold and coal appear 

 to have been discovered in 1870, and tin in 1872; copper later. The 

 time of the discovery of silver being somewhat indefinite. The 

 salubrity of the climate of Tasmania, being highly favourable to the 

 British and European constitution generally, renders it probable that 

 no step will be left untaken to discover any other such deposits as 

 tliose of Mount Lyall, Mount ]3ischoff, and the like, which have added 

 s.) much to the production and wealth of the State. 



New Zealand. — The gold discoveries of 1851 had evidently put 

 the few white men located here on the qui vive for anything oi vnuie 

 in the ground, and possibly led to the discoveiy and extraction of 

 the kauri gum, which has yielded many millions sterling to the science, 

 enterprise, and industiy of the Dominion, for its introduction into the 

 industries of the Southern Hemisphere took place soon after that of 

 gold digging, and four years before the discoveiy of payable gold in 

 those islands, and kauri gum leads the way in the working of 

 minerals, although scarcely reaching that stage at which its minei'al- 

 ised character would be acknowledged. However, coal and other sub- 

 stances have their progressive stages, and kauri gum can scarcely be 

 remitted back to the vegetable kingdom. A discovery of gold was 

 reported in 1852, but came to nothing; a further discovery was made 

 in 1857, and this began the business of gold mining in New Zealand, 

 which improved as time went on until the time of your last meeting in 

 Queensland, when the output of gold had amounted to £49,300,939, 

 whilst the inferior metals and minerals, comprising coal, kauri gum, 

 silver, copper, chrome, antimony, manganese, haematite, and mixed 

 minerals to the value of £11,617,524, made up a total of £60,918,463. 

 In the last year of the period (1893) the total output of gold was 



