HISTORY OF MINING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22723, 8 November 1935, Page 9

HISTORY OF MINING

ADDRESS BY DR ANDREW- . ■ ■■■ ■■ k

An interesting address on the history of mining was given last evening by Dr Aj R. Andrew, dean of the Mining Faculty, before the Historical'Branch ot the Otago Institute. Dr Elder occupied the chair. 1 , . , , The lecturer -first gave a brief account of very early attempts at mining, going back as far as the stone and bronze ages, although, he said, the earliest historical record was im the year 5200 b.c., when expeditions left Egypt to mine gold, copper, and turquoise in the rocky country about Mount SinaiAfter dealing\with mining activities m the time of the Romans and Saxons, Dr Andrew went on to say that Britain s production of tin, gold, silver, copper, lead and 'zinc persisted until_ comparatively recently. In 1855, • Britain produced tin worth £600,000; copper worth £2,350.000; lead and zinc worth £1,700,000. As regards Britain’s coal, there was a renewal of a charter to Newcastle, in the vear 1234, to mine coal, and in the time of Charles I, coal commenced to be used largely for fuel. Coal drainage gave trouble, and the early development of the steam engine arose from mine-pumping. Watt’s steam engine for many years was used only for dewatering coal and iron mines. , In 1848 came the discovery of gold in California, where in the absence of Government laws the miners devised their own laws, which were the main substance of the present mining laws of America. For two years, the Californian mining community formed the nearest approach to a democracy that the world had ever known. In 10 years California turned out 555,000,000 dollars of gold, and during the Civil War years the value was 186.000. dollars. It was this gold which financed the north against the south, and won the Civil War against slavery. On the heels of the gold rush came agriculture, towns, harbours, and manufactures, and the first railroad linking east with west. The year 1851 marked the Australian rushes, brought on despite the efforts of authority to suppress them. The Ne«; South Wales rushes were law-abiding, but the Victorian were at times unruly, until a better set of 'Government regula tions were brought in. The gold discoveries stimulated exploration, which revealed the grassy uplands, which became the Land of the Golden Fleece. Agriculture followed; towns, docks, and factories arose, and a convict settlement became a nation. „ VT The. year 1861 was-the start of New Zealand mining. Gold had been worked in 1854 at Coromondel, and at one time there were 3000 miners there. But the Otago discoveries were of greater importance, and they created the wealth of Otago, just as had been done in California and Australia. In two years Central Otago produced over 1.000,0000 zof gold and”population and trade trebled. In one respect the Otago rushes differed from the previous ones. The leads of pold ran into the beds of swift and deep rivers, and the early miners followed the leads in with spoon dredges, then with currentwheel dredges, and finally with steam dredges. The steam dredges spread oyer the world, developed far beyond the original type, and to-day there were dredges like the Killinghall dredge in the Malay States, 276 feet long, and dredging to a denth of 130 feet below water level Later on, said Dr Andrew, new fields were opened up—Transyaal, West Australia, Klondike, Rhodesia, West Africa, Cobalt. Kabanga", and New Guinea. Cyanida and flotation processes extended and created new fields. To-dav, concluded the speaker, the wortd was at the highest peak ever as regards metal production. Of the world production of gold from 1402 to 1930 half had been mined since 1900. In 1855 the 1 ' consumption of iron in America per head of population per year was 551 b: to-day it was 7881 b. The world production for 1930 was roughly: Gold, £100.000,000 sterling; copper, 1,500.000 tons; iron. 78.000. tons. _ , On the motion of Dr Mullm the lecturer %vae accorded a hearty vote of thanks.