ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE
{To the Editor of the Daily Times.)
Sir, — I notice that you have quoted a portion of my late lamented assistant's report as my own, and I would feel obliged by your rectifying the error you have inadvertently made.
By referring to the report of Mr. Alexander Garvie you will see it is dated 15th July, 1858, and in it will be found the announcement of gold having been discovered in the Clutha River above the junction of the Manuherikia (the very spot to which the present rush is directed) and the Tuapeka, Manuherikia, Pomahaka. and Waitahuna. All that I had to do with the above report was the foot note dated, as you mention, viz., the 10th August, 1859, in which the south branch of the Tokomairiro river was indicated as a payable gold-field (now the Woolshed diggings).
Mr. Garvie at that time was struggling against ill health, and notwithstanding this, with a zeal and energy highly creditable to him, he explored the whole of the interior, then a desolate waste entirely unoccupied, and that time he penetrated through the Cawinaur Gorges as far as the junction of the Kawarau, which he named the Blue Clutha, and of which he brought a sketch into town. The Hartley diggings are therefore first indicated by the late Mr. Garvie four years ago. This fact detracts nothing from the merits of the present discoverers of a payable gold-field.
While Mr. Garvie was exploring further down, I penetrated into the Upper Clutha district by the Lindis Pass, and published the fact of gold being present in the Lindis River, under date July 1858, at a point 22 miles above the present Hartley diggings. I take no credit to myself for this, as I did not test its capabilities, but simply announced the fact. On the contrary, Mr. Garvie sugested the probable payable nature of the ground, "if worked by a wholesale system of working." He suggested the same of the Tuapeka, to which Mr. J. Gabriel Read's name is now solely attached.
Yours, &c. J. Thomson, Chief Surveyor. Dunedin, 20th August, 1862. -Otago Daily Times, 22/8/1862.
THE OTAGO INSTITUTE. (excerpt)
The following is the inaugural Address read at the meeting of the Institute on the 7th instant, by the President, Mr J. T, Thomson: —
The first meeting of the Institute took place on the 20th July, 1869, we are therefore approaching the fifth year of our existence. In looking over the papers published by the New Zealand Institute, of which chis one is an affiliated Society, I think it will be generally acknowledged that after we have subtracted those written by the official or Government staff, our share of work has been fairly done; not that I would have you to relax your efforts in the pursuit of knowledge, but that they may be redoubled.
At the same time, my much-respected assistant, Mr Alexander Garvie, in whose survey party was Mr John Buchanan, of Australian gold-mining experience, and the actual prospector, traversed the Tuapeka district, extending his explorations up the Valley as far as the Kawarau Junction (now Cromwell). Over this area Mr Garvie reported gold to be generally distributed, and probably payable by "some wholesale system of washing." It was on this data principally that I ventured on the suggestion. It was, therefore, founded on actual observation, and not made at haphazard. -Otago Witness, 18/4/1874.
PRESENTATION TO MR J. T. THOMSON. (abridged)
A numerous meeting of gentlemen assembled at Murray's Hotel on Saturday afternoon for the purpose of witnessing a presentation to Mr J. T. Thomson, lately Chief Surveyor and at present Chief Commissioner of the Waste Lands Board of Otago. The gift consisted of an elegant and massive vase, and was purchased by thirty officers who had served under Mr Thomson, and who thus desired to show their appreciation of his services as Director of the Survey of Otago from 1856 to 1873.
"But you will excuse me in mentioning the name of the late Alexander Garvie, a mathematician and good practical astronomer, of a retiring and sensitive mind, yet a man of strong purpose and indomitable virtue. In him I found my first Otago assistant; in him I found an ever ready sympathiser; he it was who assisted me, with alacrity, in the hardships and exposure — not to say dangers — of the first interior explorations and surveys." -Otago Daily Times, 24/3/1875.
THE STORY OF THE EARLY GOLD DISCOVERIES IN OTAGO. (excerpt)
By Vincent Pyke.
More ample confirmation of the presence of gold was at hand. In the months of October and November 1857, and daring the early part of 1858, Mr Alexander Garvie, then Assistantsurveyor, executed a reconnaissance survey of the South-eastern Districts, and in his very full and complete Report, dated 15th July 1858, he remarks that —
'The eastern portion from the coast to the Manuherikia, appears to be composed almost entirely of rocks belonging to the micaschist systems. Towards the south-west, clay-slate and altered rock appear, as at Tapanui, the lower part of the Pomahaka, and the Clutha, below the Tuapeka. . . . Traces of gold were found in the gravel of several of the streams and rivers. The trials were all made on the very surface, at such odd times as would not interrupt the proper work of the survey, by one of the party who happened to have previously visited the Australian goldfields. The gold found was in every case small and scaly, varying from the smallest specks to about the roughness of bran. It was found in the Clutha river, above the junction of the Manuherikia, and in the Tuapeka stream, in sufficient quantities to make it probable that it would pay to work if set about in a proper manner, with some wholesale system of washing such as sluicing. Specks were also found in the Manuherikia, Pomahaka, and Waitahuna and it will probably be found also in some of the tributaries of the Mataura and Pomahaka.'
The person — 'one of the party' — of Australian experience referred to in the foregoing extract was a Mr Buchanan, long resident in Dunedin. -Otago Witness, 12/11/1886.
Arthur Street Cemetery, Dunedin.
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