Page:Downey•Quartz·Reefs·West·Coast•1928.pdf/3

In preparing the following pages an attempt has been made to collect in a handy form such reliable information as is available regarding the whole of the quartz-prospecting or quartz-mining carried out in the West Coast Inspection District of New Zealand from the earliest days up to the end of 1926.

The compilation was primarily to serve as a convenient book of reference on the subject for the Mines Department, of which the writer has the honour to be an official; but it may well prove of use to a large section of the general mining public, especially to those persons interested in prospecting or inclined to support mining effort by taking up shares in mining companies. As far as the latter are concerned, there can be little doubt that if some such volume had been available in the past it may have prevented them wasting much money put into ill-advised flotations, of which there have been so many during recent years.

A good deal of the information given has been culled from departmental files, and has never previously appeared in print, but by far the greater portion of it has already been published in one form or other. It has, however, been scattered through scores of publications issued during a period of half a century, and hence has not been readily available to the ordinary reader.

In collating the information, much difficulty has been experienced in arriving at anything like accuracy in description, both as regards the work done on the various mining areas and their results. This has been partly owing to the absence of detailed records covering the years prior to, say, 1887, and partly to many inaccuracies and contradictions that appear in existing records dealing both with that and later periods. In practically all cases, however, there has been indirect data at hand to serve as a guide, consequently the writer feels that any statements now made herein may be considered as reliable as it is possible in the circumstances to get them.

Full use has been made of such of the bulletins issued by the Geological Survey Department as have dealt with areas in the district, and particularly of Bulletin No. 18, "Geology of the Reefton Subdivision," by Dr. J. Henderson. The information given in that publication regarding the Reefton mines proved very helpful, but the writer has added to it and has brought it up for a further fourteen years.

Office of the Inspector of Mines, Reefton,
30th November, 1927.