TIN DEPOSITS IN SOUTH

Southland Times, Issue 24651, 24 January 1942, Page 4

TIN DEPOSITS IN SOUTH

Exploitation Likely At Pegasus

Efforts are likely to be made in the near future to exploit tin desposits at Port Pegasus, near the southern extremity of Stewart Island. A party lett Halfmoon Bay at the beginnirig of this week to take materials for the construction of a water race to the claim, and when the race is completed alluvial mining will probably begin. The - extraordinary demand for tin for war purposes has been accentuated by the loss of mines in Malaya since the Japanese entry into the war, and any effort to develop other known deposits in Allied hands may prove an important factor in maintaining supplies of raw materials. Previous attempts to exploit, the mineral resources at Port Pegasus have not been successful, but it is believed that under present conditions profitable exploitation may be possible. EARLY MINING RUSH

The existence of deposits of tin and other minerals, including wolframite, at Port Pegasus has been known since 1888, when a gold-seeking party failed in its original quest, but located an unknown mineral which on analysis was found to be stream tin. The excitement among the party caused, by the discovery did not pass unnoticed among other miners, and a rush to Port Pegasus developed. Several hundreds of miners were on the field during the first rush and a store, post office and hotel were opened in the district. Applications were made to the Government for assistance in developing the deposits, but only a small sum for the construction of a track to the range was granted. In a comparatively short time the rush fizzled out. Several spasmodic attempts to exploit the deposits have since been made without any real success, several miners contending that a lack of capital has been the principal handicap to such ventures.

In his book “Rakiura,” Dr Basil Howard states that the discovery of alluvial deposits of minerals gave rise to the ill-founded optiminsm of the nineties, and the inexperienced miners deduced from the occurrence of these pockets the presence of a rich parent lode in the heights above. Much time and money were spent in driving tunnels in search of the imagined source of the stream tin, and even these drives met with nothing other than the narrow veins already observed on the surface, the miners were loth to abandon their belief in the existence of a great store of the mineral deep in the schistose cap of the Tin Range.