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The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]

Blue Spur

Blue Spur.

Blue Spur is one of the most noted mining settlements in Otago. Sluicing and quartz-mining have been carried on there for about forty years. The township has a post office, a store and hotel, and is within three miles of Lawrence, with which it is connected by telephone. The Presbyterian and Wesleyan denominations have erected places of worship at Blue Spur.

Mr. James Mckay , formerly a storekeeper at Blue Spur, was born at Armadale, Lanarkshire, Scotland, on the 20th of March, 1868, and arrived in Wellington by the ship “Caroline,” in 1875. He resided successively at Featherston, Shag Point, and Wetherstones, and was brought up to business in Lawrence. Mr. McKay was married on the 20th of February, 1895, to the widow of the late Mr. George Riddall, who had bought a storekeeping business at Blue Spur in 1889.

Mr. J. McKay.

Mr. J. McKay.

The Blue Spur Mine is the property of the Blue Spur and Gabriel's Gully Consolidated Gold Company, Limited, the general manager of which is Mr. John Howard Jackson, member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. The mine is situated near the head of the far-famed Gabriel's Gully, about three miles from the Lawrence railway station. It is throughout alluvial, and comprises a mass of cemented breccia, consisting of sub-angular pieces of quartz, slate, recently formed sandstone, and numerous boulders of jasperoid, stacked up in regular strata by water, and cemented together by lime, which abounds in different forms, alum, and iron; and a considerable area of page 691 Gabriel's Gully itself, which has been filled to a depth of from 60 to 80 feet by the tailings resulting from ground sluicing operations in the upper layers of the cement or original deposit. In the early sixties prospecting parties from the miners who had first rushed to Gabriel's Gully discovered that the hill, exactly similar to those in the vicinity, dividing Gabriel's from Munro's Gully, was auriferous; and this discovery was soon followed by the construction of water races from the ranges behind, to enable ground sluicing operations on a large scale to be undertaken by numerous separate parties of miners. The Consolidated Company now owns and has to maintain 166 miles of contour ditches, which is a source of very considerable expense in money and in water waste from the unavoidable leakage and evaporation which take place. It is not now possible to construct one commanding conduit which would convey all the water to the mine at a less altitude and on better principles, and thus effect economies in money and water, without loss of priority of right in some of the many sources of supply. Sir James Hector, for many years Director of the Geological Surveys of New Zealand, was the first to recognise the true nature of the Blue Spur deposit. Many other scientists who had visited and examined the locality attributed it to some fantastic and nebulous glacier, or what not. He says that the cement is part of “an ancient alluvium, a small area of which has become locked in a fault or slide that has gaped at the surface and thus escaped the general denudation. The cement itself consists of confused sub-angular breccia, in regular layers, interbedded with grey green sand, and massive waterworn boulders varying from several feet to a few inches in diameter; these are generally of the very hardest rock derived from the aphenite breccias of the Te Anau formation.” A general characteristic of the deposit is that all its constituents, including the gold, bear distinct evidence of severe water wear, and an interesting feature is the occurrence of leaf fossils in the false bottom or beddings of successive layers of cement. These palOœeobotanic remains have not yet been identified. Among the best defined forms is one bearing a strong resemblance to the English oak. They suggest the probability that their present locus remained as an actual surface for a sufficiently long time to produce a flora of its own before it was overwhelmed by subsequent deposits. Towards the end of 1891 the Consolidated Company cleared a large dumping ground in Gabriel's Gully, secured an outlet for leakage and waste water, and fairly commenced work on the mass of cement, which is about 105 feet in thickness, and is being worked in divisions. The mine is lighted for night work by 3000 candlepower are lamps, the dynamo, one of Crampton's, being run with an 18-inch Pelton wheel, using rather more than one Government head of water under a hydraulic head of 320 feet. Large blasts are always fired electrically direct from the dynamo. The gold itself realises £1 18s 6d net, and the cost of working amounts to about 40 per cent of the gross proceeds.

Mr. John Mchattie , formerly Mine Manager of the Blue Spur and Gabriel's Gully Consolidated Gold Mining Company, was born at Banff, Scotland, in 1830. At fifteen years of age he went to sea, and five years later proceeded to Adelaide. There he remained about a year, and then went to Victoria, where he worked on the goldfields for ten years. In 1863 he came to Port Chalmers and went to Waitahuna, where he remained until 1869. He then removed to the Blue Spur, and was appointed mine manager in 1892. Mr. McHattie is a prominent Oddfellow, having been through all the chairs in the Waitahuna Lodge. He was married in 1856, and has two sons and one daughter, who is the wife of Mr. J. C. Browne, formerly Mayor of Lawrence. Mr. McHattie has retired from the management of the Blue Spur mine, and now resides in Lawrence.

Mr. J. McHattie.

Mr. J. McHattie.