The Tuapeka Goldfields

The Tuapeka Goldfields, Otago, New Zealand, 1862. 'The province received a great impetus in June, last year, by the discovery of goldfields situated on a stream called the Tuapeka...The immediate effect was to attract immigrants from Australia and from the neighbouring New Zealand provinces, and since then the population of Otago has doubled, being now estimated at upwards of 25,000. In the space of little more than half a year...gold to the value of more than a million sterling had been exported from Dunedin, and that small body of settlers have suddenly found themselves raised to circumstances of affluence...There are still in the province some 8000 square miles of country where the foot of a white man has never trod, and of these 2000 square miles have recently been explored, and are now mapped out for settlement. The total white population of New Zealand was at the census of 1860 83,919. The Maori or native population is estimated as nearly the same, but it is decreasing as rapidly as the other is increasing'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862. Creator: W Thomas. (Photo by The Print Collector/Heritage Images via Getty Images)