442 Froceedhigs. 



products will be the same, equal in cpality and as highly esteemed, whether 

 they be wool, corn, or dairy produce, fresh or cured meat, or malt liquors. 



" Our underground resources have been too little examined to permit of 

 much speculation. That we have considerable and easily available coalfields 

 is undoubted, and gold may be a valuable part of our exports." 



No doubt my estimates, made at so early a date and while we as a colony 

 were groj^ing in the dark, are approximate, yet they were better than the 

 estimates of those persons I saw at that time visiting Dunedin, who, looking at 

 the snowy mountains behind Mount Cai^gill, shrvigged their shoulders and took 

 their passages by the next vessels sailing. The surmise of such was that Otago 

 consisted of snowy mountains, whose appearance, in the language of a pioneer 

 settler, was as a mass of sugar-loaves on a grocer's " bink." 



Going to facts as we find them, it is interesting to note in the New Zealand 

 statistics of 1871 that our wool export had increased to £689,182 ; our grain 

 to £46,132;* and gold to £617,617 sterling, thus more than bearing out my 

 anticipations ; but of the latter I pretended to make no estimate. Yet the 

 indication of the future was there, as I remarked that " gold might be a 

 valuable part of our exports," and in giving this opinion I did not act without 

 "observation." I had gone over most part of the Province in 1856 and 1857, 

 excepting the Tuapeka district and the western snowy mountains. In doing 

 so I had seen gold detected in the Mataura, very generally over the Waiopai 

 Plains, as well as in the Lindis ; and at the Nokomai the formation gave 

 strong evidence of an auriferous nature, which fact T recorded in my field 

 book. Yet I traversed the Hogburn (now ISTaseby), the Raggedy Ranges (now 

 Blacks), and Flatcap (now Hamiltons) without anticipating the discoveries 

 that have since taken place. 



At the same time my much-respected assistant, Mr. Alexander Garvie, in 

 whose survey party was Mr. John Buchanan, of Australian gold-mining 

 experience and the actual prospector, traversed the Tuapeka district, extending 

 his explorations up the Clutha Valley as far as the Kawarau Junction (now 

 Cromwell). Over this area Mr. Garvie reported gold to be generally 

 distributed, and probably payable by "some wholesale system of washing." 

 It was on these data principally that I ventured on the suggestion. It was 

 therefore founded on actual observation, and not made at haphazard. 



Such was the state of the gold question in July, 1858, and, as subsequent 

 events need not engage attention at present, I would refer those interested to 



* As wool is almost entirely exported, wMle grain and agricultural produce are 

 consumed at liome, the statement, without remark, would leave an unfavourable 

 impression. The statistics of this last year show the value of agricultural i^roducc to be 

 asfollows:—W]ieat, £372,250; oats, £3U0, 300; barley, £GG,000; hay, £32,000; potatoes, 

 £60,000— £830,550 sturlmg. 



