Logan's Mine (Cromwell company), Bendigo, Central Otago District, Otago Region, South Island, New Zealand

Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	44° 55' 50'' South , 169° 21' 6'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-44.93057,169.35186
Köppen climate type:	Cfb : Temperate oceanic climate

This mine was incredibly rich in its early years, then went through decades of constant ownership changes with little gold found. It is typical of rich mines, where investors sink funds into a location based on past results, not appreciating most of the gold has already been extracted. Modern exploration companies often still employ the practice.

The goldfield was discovered in late 1862, and soon there was a rush of miners extracting gold from the alluvial gravels. Thomas Logan in 1863 was searching the hillsides for the source of the alluvial gold. Initially he struggled to find capital to develop the reef found, until 1866 when the Bendigo Quartz Mining Company consisting of Dunedin businessmen was formed. Two miners were employed to sink a shaft, but when no gold was found the project was abandoned.

Considering how rich in gold the reef turned out to be, there is a theory Logan was unhappy with the arrangement, and purposely sank the shaft in a barren area. Logan, William Garrett, Brian Hebdon, and Cromwell hotel owner George Wellington Goodger formed a syndicate called the Cromwell Company
in 1868. A 12 head stamp battery was erected, with an iron water wheel at the mouth of the Bendigo Gorge, with operations starting in March 1869.

Garrett soon fell out with the other partners, and tried to dissolve the company, however before this took effect he died in a riding accident on 30 December 1869. In 1870, the company took alluvial gold miners, Alldridge and party to court over a water rights dispute. In August 1872, Hebdon sold out and returned to England, replaced with Borthwick Baird. To 1874 the mine had produced a phenomenal amount of gold, and there was healthy returns for several years after. In 1875, the mine manager was J. Parry.

January 1876 the company was registered as a public concern, with Dunedin businessmen injecting more money. February 1877 the Aurora battery was shifted to the main shaft, and in March 1878 Charles Todd was appointed mine manager. July 1878 another battery was erected, totalling now 15 stamps. There were three shafts.

Gold production declined after 1880, although the company was still paying dividends. Seventy men were employed. A lot of dead exploratory work was being conducted with no new gold finds. Gold production continued to decline and the company was voluntarily wound up in 1884.

At the end of 1884 a new company was formed called the New Cromwell Quartz Mining Company. A new shaft was sunk to a depth of 520 feet by 1891 on a parallel reef to the north, with the battery expanded unreasonably to 20 heads. Despite all this development work over an extended period, the only crushings were dregs from the old workings.

More capital was successfully sought from London, until the company folded in 1894. A new London based company was then registered, with more capital invested in September 1896. By 1898 the mine was on tribute, with the over-arching company registered named the Cromwell Proprietary Gold Mining Company. With the gold exhausted in the upper levels, this company closed in 1900. In 1901 the mine is on tribute to Salmond and party. The Matilda battery tailings were sold to a syndicate who intended to cyanide them. In 1902 the tributers had the impossibly long name of Melchesidic Bospednic Edwards and party.

The mine was sold in 1903 to D.B. Waters representing a small syndicate, tributed to Edwards and Pascoe in 1904, then the Cameron brothers in 1905, who prospected only. In 1906, the mine was sold to J. Stevenson of Dunedin who formed a small syndicate and hydro sluiced the gravels on the lease until 1907. It was sold again in 1908 to a syndicate of local residents, with half the battery shifted to the Come In Time Mine.

In 1910, the Cromwell Gold Mines Development Company was formed with sixty shareholders and only 1500 pounds capital. They drove a low level tunnel, failed to find any gold, and offered the mine for sale in 1913.

In the 1930's, Charles Todd, the son of the former mine manager of the same name formed a company, and continued to develop the low level tunnel over the next few years, also finding no gold. The company was wound up, and the plant sold in 1938.

The reef strikes south-east, is steeply dipping, cutting quartziferous mica schist. The quartz reef was Fe stained near the surface and bluish at depth, with ferrigunous clay walls. At depth the quartz is impregnated with pyrite, galena, and marmatite. Gold is found in seams and masses in the quartz, especially shoots dipping steeply east.

Mineral List

5 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

Regional Geology

This geological map and associated information on rock units at or nearby to the coordinates given for this locality is based on relatively small scale geological maps provided by various national Geological Surveys. This does not necessarily represent the complete geology at this locality but it gives a background for the region in which it is found.

Click on geological units on the map for more information. Click here to view full-screen map on Macrostrat.org

Pleistocene 0.0117 - 2.588 Ma ID: 1311100	Middle Quaternary till deposits Age: Pleistocene (0.0117 - 2.588 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Pakihi Supergroup Description: Pebbly to bouldery gravel, sand, silt and mud. Comments: Zealandia Megasequence Terrestrial and Shallow Marine Sedimentary Rocks (Neogene) Lithology: Gravel, sand, silt, mud Reference: Edbrooke, S.W., Heron, D.W., Forsyth, P.J., Jongens, R. (compilers). Geology Map of New Zealand 1:1 000 000. GNS Science Geological Map 2. [12]
Middle Pleistocene 0.126 - 0.781 Ma ID: 1353117	OIS12 (Middle Pleistocene) glacier deposits Age: Pleistocene (0.126 - 0.781 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Lindis Formation Description: Till consisting of moderately weathered, poorly sorted, bouldery sandy gravel with silt lenses. Comments: Middle Pleistocene glacier deposits. Age based on C14, U-Th dating Lithology: Major:: {till},Minor:: {boulders, gravel, sand, silt, clay} Reference: Heron, D.W. . Geology Map of New Zealand 1:250 000. GNS Science Geological Map 1. [13]
Triassic - Permian 201.3 - 298.9 Ma ID: 3189657	Paleozoic-Mesozoic crystalline metamorphic rocks Age: Phanerozoic (201.3 - 298.9 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Haast Schist Comments: Caples Terrane Lithology: Metawacke; greenschist/almandine amphibolite grade metasedimentary/metavolcanic schist Reference: Chorlton, L.B. Generalized geology of the world: bedrock domains and major faults in GIS format: a small-scale world geology map with an extended geological attribute database. doi: 10.4095/223767. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5529. [154]

Data and map coding provided by Macrostrat.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

References