THE WEST COAST GOLD RUSHES. By Philip Ross May.

THE WEST COAST GOLD RUSHES. By Philip Ross May.

Hardback, acceptable condition, large stain to back top right corner, name and address inside. Dust Jacket scuffed, chipped, closed tears to edges, marked and stained.

Black and White Plates, maps, end paper maps, 560 Pages, Published by The Pegasus Press Christchurch. 1967 second (revised) Edition.

Classic work on the West Coast Goldrushes. 'Gold changed New Zealand's West Coast from a no-man's-land to a settled district in three years. Before 1865 the region was almost uninhabited. By 1867 it was dotted with townships, crisscrossed with tracks and tramways; its population numbered nearly thirty thousand, its chief port was the busiest in the Colony, its annual gold exports averaged over half a million ounces. The gold seemed everywhere; in creeks, in gullies, in terraces, even on the sea-beaches. Out of nothing sprang Goldsborough and Stafford, Charleston and Brighton, No Town, Candlelight, Pretty Woman's, Swiper's Deadman's and a hundred other places now forgotten. This book deals mainly with three hectic years- the first time that any part of New Zealand has been given such intense scrutiny over such a short period. If some myths are destroyed, the facts that replace them are no less remarkable.... Gold brought a prosperous traffic to Nelson and Otago, and to Auckland, though most of the profits went to shrewd tradesr in Melbourne. For Canterbury, within whose borders the major goldfields lay, gold brought 'the Westland Debt' and political separation. For the Coast it meant the beginning of everything.

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