The Waitahuna Diggings Otago.

Rare colonial engraving of Waitahuna Diggings, Otago.

Gold was discovered here by Gabriel Read in 1861. After discovering gold the first major gold field discovery in Otago, the government employed him as a prospector for a few months. During this exercise, gold at Waitahuna Gully was uncovered later in the year. The inevitable rush quickly followed, with the whole gully turfed over for alluvial gold. Within a year or two the thousands of miners, fell to hundreds, as miners left for other newly discovered goldfields on the West Coast. Eighty to one hundred Chinese miners reworked the old claims in the late 1860s, and 1870’s.

From the original edition of The Illustrated Sydney News.

References:
Gibbs & Shallard. Illustrated Sydney News. ISSN 2203-5397.

Collections:
State Library New South Wales: F8/39-40
State Library Victoria: PCINF SLVIC=1853-1872
National Library Australia: Bib ID 440095