Chinese goldminers sluicing for gold with a ground sluice,Black Water,Kumara .ca.1915.

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DescriptionA part of history seldom acknowledged...
Chinese goldminers ground sluicing at Blackwater, West Coast
- Scene at Blackwater, Inangahua County. A group of four Chinese goldminers are sluicing for gold with a ground sluice. - Circa 1915
Date of Photo1915Map^[1]External LinkMadon NZContributor Richard Wooders

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Location (city or town)BlackwaterEventChinese goldminers sluicing for gold

Category Information

Category TagChineseGoldmining

From Facebook

Date Created23rd May 2022CommentsRichard Howe
From seeing some of the old Chinese gold workings, i have to say that they were very tidy miners. Stones made into walls and neatly stacked.

Heather Newby
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Richard Howe Dad always said that too

Richard Howe
Heather Newby Well if a Coaster said so Heather, then my thoughts have been confirmed.

Bob Laing
The Chinese wouldn’t tunnel to get rid of water so the built very narrow deep drains with hand packed rocks on either side of the drain. Some age 20 plus feet deep but only a little more the a shoulder width wide. They would have been difficult to build and if you fell into one !!!

Richard Howe
Bob Laing Thank you Bob, I couldn't believe how much trouble they went to , to build those drains. Lucky the Chinese were of a very slim build.
Reply3hEdited

Mari Walsh
A friend who was a hunter said he saw many if them.. knew they made by them due the workmanship... he couldn't believe the work involved seeing how narrow they were.

Richard Howe
Mari Walsh Mari, i believe him, and he would have seen many more than i have.

Arthur Bass
Burrowes had a rotary screen there and ran into a lot of wooden drains well underground.Chris Kelly
Black water in kumara

Trevor Grant
Well I that they dug the tailraces drains to get the water to gold deposits two foot deep and over 150 years of rain the water has followed the channel down that's why they r so deep and narrow

Bob Laing
Trevor Grant
Not quite. The bottoms of the rock hand packed races have not eroded. Should that have happened the races would have caved in. I suggest you go and have a look at a few of them.

Trevor Grant
Bob Laing yea I've seen them but it depends on what type of sediment it's sitting on sandstone erodes with water where as the blue parpa doesn't or rock bottom like in the moonlight won't either

Trevor Grant
How would you get a 20metre deep two foot wide hole 200metres long with a pick or shovel when u can't fit down it ?

Bob Laing
Trevor Grant the races were wider than a man’s hips and shoulders when dug. The lhandpacked rocks were added to each side a row at a time from the bottom up thus narrowing the drain. Must have been hard, painstaking and difficult work.
I would not lik… See more

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Chinese goldminers sluicing for gold with a ground sluice,Black Water,Kumara .ca.1915.

Editing is temporarily disabled