Sandy Point, New Zealand 🌍

Sandy Point (#nz61)

North Otago Times, Volume IV, Issue 53, 23 February 1865

A gentleman who has just returned from a visit to Lindis Downs, Sandy Point, Rocky Point, Alberton, Cardrona, and Cromwell, reports that at Lindis Downs new diggings have been commenced; fine nuggety gold is found in patches, it is very coarse and not water worn; about 16 men are at work on the ground and about 20 ounces have been got. At Sandy Point machinery is about to be brought into use, and a windmill being nearly completed for raising water for sluicing purposes.

In the vicinity of Poison Creek (a place nearly opposite the Lindis Pass) there is a party of six sluicing; and at Sandy Point (both sides of the river) about 18 miners and one storekeeper. They seem to be doing very well, and are not likely to abandon the Point. At this place I was shewn a windmill, invented and made by a Greek named John Kelly. It is a most ingenious contrivance, and I am told answers splendidly for working the Californian pump. It is built of Lake Wanaka wood, and stands on a frame of about 8 feet square. The mill itself is a square frame, and works horizontally, like an English round-about. On each corner a mast is stepped; through the sheave at each mast head haulyards are rove, and the standing post bent to an iron traveller with a hook for the becket on the gaff of the sails. The sails are dandy-cut boom-mainsails, with slab reefs, and are hauled out to booms of about 10 feet in length. He reefs his sails and shakes them out according to the strength of the wind; and this is the only plan he has of increasing or reducing the power of the machinery. Having no pall or compressor on the machine, the side of the mill is fitted with cogs, which interline another set of cogs of the drum (or roller) of the pump, and by this method keeps the band working steadily while there is wind. The pump can be used in two ways, either to draw water from the river, and branch-piped for sluicing, or to drain wet paddocks before working. The inventor told me, that with a good stiff breeze and the present appliances, he thought it would pump out ten to twelve tons an hour. I was also shewn a cradle with a pump attached to it; and it is so fitted that as the cradling continues, the pump works also, throwing a good stream of water info the cradle, and saving the miner from the tedious labor of hand baling.

Associated people

• John Kelly