New Zealand Gold Prospecting & Metal Detecting Forums Archive

Good luck Matt - you will before long - I will be in the hills not this weekend but next though think David and others up my place this weekend. I have a spot to work but need somehow to get a couple of huge boulders out of the way...I am working on it.

That is good going Matt - especially in view of the inclement weather that we had this weekend! I have had worse days than that...in fact I have been stuck in a tent for seven out of eight days with the flood waters actually flowing under the floor of the tent.

Watch this space Matt as they are coming up - collectible? - Yes - contents? Yes well! Probably more economical and better value for money than ten times the volume of alcohol...need I say more!...I am not so sure that it took away the pain...more likely made it hilarious!

As you did ask now Matt I shall tell you that its contents were mainly ethyl alcohol with opiates - Judging by the black precipitate I once saw in a Gold Rush era bottle that was still full I do think that one glug was fantasy land, two was fairyland and three made you totally gaa gaa!

More on that later!

Edited by user Monday, 12 March 2012 4:20:50 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Not only that, but they acted as an appetite suppressant, so you ate what little you had and washed it down with a mind numbing pain killer, and then carried on regardless. If you were using that stuff today you would be a drug addict.

I am quite sure that some of them ate surprisingly well. Some of the larger camp sites with better established and more permanent dwellings had large rubbish heaps with a good number of these bottles but also bones, broken food containers and garden sites where fresh produce was grown - the particular sites I have in mind were Chinese and it is clearly evident that they looked after themselves - I am sure that the opiates in the bottles were what they were interested in and the affects it gave them...relaxation after work I would think more than drinking the stuff before work to suppress an appetite...and make mistakes, get careless aand do stupid tihngs - they knew the importance of working with clear and level heads and I am sure they didnt imbibe in this stuff to suppress appetites before going off to work.

The Chinese were too clever for that - they were inherently hard workers but in the evening they socialized but they also ate well. I am sure that they ate better than Europeans due to the fresh vegetables they grew and also the dried vegetables they imported from China...they were quick to adopt European wares and goods so had the best of both worlds - unlike the Europeans who seemed to restrict themselves to European wares though of course there would have been exceptions to the rule.

Europeans on the other hand may have been more inclined to consume the painkillers for the reasons you suggest...It would be interesting to go back in time and to see for ones self exactly what the story was.

I know that when I used to spend days on end in the hills alcohol used to make me hungry and I would have cookups at all inane hours and once you know the lie of the land it is amazing what there is out there that not only can you eat but can be made into a tasty dish....even if it sometimes disrupts the toilet habits...one way or the other!

Edited by user Friday, 16 March 2012 11:42:12 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Oh for the simple days when anyone could throw a cure in a bottle and take to the streets selling it!

Nice chunk of gold - I must be walking in the wrong places as I haven't managed to "pick up" one of them yet lol

mineforgold - In those days there was more freedom - not like the slavery of Kiwi democracy that is imposed on us today. Back then you could do what you liked as long as you broke no laws and the laws then were common sense laws! If you wanted to imbibe in copious quanitites of 'cough' medicine heavily laced with opiates then you could do so.

As a matter of interest I have here all the correspondence of a 'medicine man' from the American wild west - most of them performed magic tricks as the one whose correspondence I have did - he called himself the 'Sleaker Cancer Company' at one stage and 'The Golden Nervous Medical Company' on another occasion and travelled around the West in the 1890s - he also sold Chaulmoogra - why he sold it in the West I have no idea as it is apparently a cure or treatment for Leprosy...I suppose he sold it quite successfully and everyone was happy - maybe it did fairly instantly what it usually takes copious quantities of alcohol to achieve- it probably tasted OK and it probably guaranteed with certainty that people were far more likely to die of lead poisoning than leprosy. Most of these quacks also had something to attract people - bearded ladies and so on...this guy had a tape worm in a bottle which had been passed out of the rear end of some character after having taken a does of medicine from 'The American Staff of Physicians' - it took 3 1/2 hours for him to shit out the tape worm and it was 64 feet long...a 20 metre tapeworm...and I tell you all of this because of a bottle of painkiller...wonders never cease

5AMP - I have a copy of Illustrious Energy and it really is a grand film - I am taking the chap who I think was an advisor and who is New Zealands leading expert on the Chinese miners to see one of the Chinese mining areas shortly. On my property there is what I assume to be a garden plot which the Chinese had...if not then it could have been a horse paddock. In the neighbours there is also a small enclosed area which is too big for a hut and may also be a garden. The Chinese were fairly adept at looking after themselves and were marvellous gardeners. The chap I purchased my place from told me that his father remembered the Chinese miners back in the 1890s - they walked silently in single file from one place to the next. He also said that his father commented that the Chinese carried their swags, groceries, gear etc on poles over their shoulders...this shows in the film.

After having seen what I have seen over the years I think the Chinese looked after themselves generally better than the European miners and I have a great deal of respect for those chaps who came from China to the New Zealand goldfields with the knowledge that the Chinese on the Californian goldfields and Australian goldfields were treated abysmally.

Edited by user Monday, 19 March 2012 10:57:57 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

What does this missus look like - maybe him and you and I could come to some sort of an arrangement here! Is she a good keen woman - loves the outdoors, rites of May, not too bad looking and has a definite hippy nature?

The Chinese had a terribly rough deal on the Californian Goldfields - it was said that if you shot a Chinaman, a Mexican or an Indian you got a pat on the back but if you shot a white man you got hung!...I dont know if its true or not,,,or how true it is but they did get a hell of a deal. They were also treated roughly in Australia so I can imagine that they came here prepared for the worst but it didnt happen although there was a certain anti Chinese feeling and some instances of mistreatment.

I have always been quizzical about the way that the Chinese were treated as I have never yet met one I didnt like but I have met a heck of a lot of whitemen I could send off swimming in concrete gumboots!

The next of the Goldfields bottles is an extremely interesting one due to the fact that it held very little, it was heavy in relationship to the volume of its contents, non alcoholic and yet I have found them out in the back of beyond so why the oldminers ever bothered carting them for miles for a few mere mouthfuls I cannot understand - I can only imagine that it was added to whisky...and the product in question...lemonade!

This bottle is simply marked J.T.NICOLS LAWRENCE

It was found at the site of a miners hut away out in the middle of nowhere and one can only wonder why the miner who took it there ever bothered to carry a small bottle of lemonade so far

J.T.Nicols had a high profile in lawrence and was a member of the Committee of the 'Tuapeka Poulty, Cage Bird, Cat and Dog Society and was often in the prize lists for show poultry

Edited by user Thursday, 22 March 2012 8:32:35 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Nice bottle Graham, Im not into collecting bottles myself but I like the stories behind some of the obscure items that you can find around the place.
For example when I find worn old silver coins I often wonder how many transactions that single piece of silver was part of and how many hours were spent
earning it by its various owners. Perhaps Im giving it too much thought.

On another note, do you remember the day trip that you, David and I took up towards Mcraes etc and I found that Scheelite?
I went back to the place where I found the old sixpence and managed to find a bunch of rocks with lots of arsenopyrite all through it
also a few nice quartz crystals. Sadly no gold but we just had to go have another look!

I know where a few of the old drives are, we went in a few of them with Uni recently, the are in a lot better shape than others I have been in. There is one downside though, most have foot or two of water in them.. If I were to find a well preserved bottle I would certaily keep it but so far It has just been shards.