Pelorus at a point now known as Canvas Town; while the Pelorus 
itself runs into the Pelorus Sound near the township of Havelock. 
It was at the juncture of the YVakamarina and Pelorus, that 
Mr. Wilson and his party first made? the discovery of the existence 
of gold. In the month of May, 1864, nearly three thousand men 
were on the ground up the river, all actually on miffed in diffffino*. 
Many of the claims were wonderfully rich, 1 others turning out 
satisfactory, but the great bulk yielded little more than fair wages. 
The last, though not the least important discovery of gold has 
been made in the Province of* Canterbury. In the North on the 
Teramakau river, on the borders of the Provinces of Nelson and 
Canterbury, the bold and enterprising James Mackay found traces 
of gold as early as in 1859; and Lindis Pass, where in January 
1861 there were already 500 diggers collected , is situated quite 
(dose to the southern boundary of the Province of Canterbury. The 
Canterbury Government therefore in 1861 set a reward of £1000 
for the discovery of a productive gold-field within its territory. Such 
a gold-field has at last in 1864 and 1865 been discovered on the 
West Coast of the province. All the numerous streams which run 
into the ocean from the Southern Alps are charged with deposits of 
the precious metal , and the whole beach from Grey-mouth in the 
North to the Wanganui river in the South, and beyond, is pros- 
pected in hundreds of places with varying success. The Walii pu- 
namu of the Maoris (the greenstone coast) may now truly be called 
the New Zealand Gold-coast. 
1 Of the finds recorded — Henry Wilson and parly divided two hundred ounces 
for their week's work. Rutland and his party disposed of eighty ounces of gold for 
the same period. Three men, in felling a tree at the edge of the river, in order to 
work their claim, came suddenly in a pocket, from which in a few hours they 
washed thirty ounces of gold. Matthews, an old man, with his two sons, obtained 
eighteen ounces of gold near the Fork in four days. Many others have been 
more or less successful. A correspondent of the “Havelock Mail” writes on the 
2' 1 June: “However lucky the digger is on the Wakamarina, and the tributary creeks, 
he is certainly not to be envied in the labour he has to perform in getting at the 
gold. The fields of Victoria are gardens in comparison, and even the bleak inhos- 
pitable ranges of Otago are preferable. Here the sun seldom penetrates the forest, 
and is never seen by the men at work in the creeks. There is not a man who lias 
visited those parts but will endorse these remarks.” 
