Goldmining hopes that were wrecked

Press, 14 June 1980, Page 15

Goldmining hopes that were wrecked

By

GARRY ARTHUR

Among the relics of goldmining on the Barewood reefs, 84 km inland from Dunedin, lie two very large iron tanks, one I of them tapered in a conical shape. The casual visitor naturally takes them to be nan of the old mining 1 machinery, but the work i they were made for was of a very different kind : from the deep quartz I mining and crushing of Barewood. The two rusting tanks, . studded with rivets, are the remains of the I Platypus, a submarine built in Dunedin in 1873 : to enable miners to work the bottoms of Otago’s gold-rich rivers. Barewood’s history has ■ now been told in. “Gold, Quartz and Cyanide,” published by Otago Heritage books. Its author, John Ingram, is the grandson of . C. W. N. Ingram, author 1 of “New Zealand Shipwrecks.” so it was natural that when he came across i the drv land shipwreck of ‘ the Platypus, he should include its • history as a postcript to the book. He describes it as one of the most curious

schemes ever to be hatched in Otago. The originator was one R. W. Huttail, who travelled from Melbourne to Dunedin in 1872 and showed the “Otago Daily Times” plans and specifications for a “sub marine boat apparatus” designed by a Monsieur Villaine for “digging and sluicing under water.” One model had already undergone successful trials in a Melbourne dock, he claimed. “The principle was to use compressed air. in what was really a subma-rine-shaped diving bell, to let a team of three men open a section in the bottom of the craft and have direct access to the river bed,” the author explains.

After arousing the interest of local investors, Mr Nuttall took his plans to the Otago Institute and explained the details. The submarine would be 26ft long and 7ft wide, and supplied with compressed air at 90 pounds to the square, inch. The river bottom would be worked with a 30ft sluice.

Nuttall’s prospectus named the Shotover, Arrow, and Molyneux among the gold-yielding rivers which the Platypus could work — at a handsome profit. unblushingly predicted to be a 500 per cent return on invested capital.

Even so, the canny Dunedin residents proved a bit slow in parting with their bawbees. The promoters eventually passed the project over to a limited company calling itself the New Zealand Submarine Gold Mining Company. A contract to build the submarine was let to Dunedin ironworkers, and the Platypus was built. Launching day was December 14, 1873. A big crowd assembled on the Rattray Street jetty to watch the iron vessel, decked out in flags and streamers, slide down the slipway. She was made of threeeighths inch iron plate and was a bit longer than originally proposed —35 ft instead of 26ft. Paddle wheels, driven by the current, w’ere to provide power to the main shaft, with a belt drive to the air pumps. Another month passed before the Platypus was tried out in Pelichet Bay. On January 30, 1974, four

company representatives and a “Dailv Times” reporter spent 45 minutes sealed in the submerged boat.

Then came the public demonstration. The Platypus was moored to a lighter in the middle of the harbour and a steamer took the public out to get a close ,'iew. Eight men entered the submarine through its dome, including Villaine and his son, and four men hired to work the pumps.

It took nearly two hours for the Platypus to sink to the bottom under water ballast. The intention was for the bottom to be opened so that some flags attached to floats could be let up to the surface, but nothing happened. After a long wait, those on the surface signalled the submariners to come up, and the Platypus slowly began to rise. But when she was partly surfaced a squall blew the submarine under the counter of the tender, and the steamer was called on to tow it into shallow water. As soon as the dome was out of the water the door opened and the eight men came out. — 4 hours 20 minutes after they had set off. They explained that a leaky valve had made it hard to expel the water ballast. Changes would have to be made. “But that, in fact, was the end of the Platypus,” writes John Ingram. The submarine and its patent were sold off for S4OO, and the empty shell lay by the wharf for many years. It was not until the 1920 s that someone bought up the remains for ten pounds, cut them into three sections, and sent them up to the Barewood reefs for use as water tanks.

“So much for the end of a golden dream,” says the historian, “and a fitting postscript for the story of Barewood — a community suddenly sprung from nothing, and to. nothing now returned again.”