The Cromwell quartz reef area 1865-85 : a geographical analysis of rise and decline.

Abstract

Historical geography in New Zealand has been characterised by a preoccupation with the local and regional synthesis. Such a proliferation of historical geographical study is widely recognised as incorporating varying emphases and modes of theoretical application.

Although many such studies have illustrated a willingness to confine themselves to an intensiveness of pure research, there is an accelerating trend towards the incorporation of historical, social science, quantitative and indeed, personal theory into the idiom of historical geography. This study, in following the latter trend, aims to lend weight to the current encouragement of the use of explanatory model-method in approaching spatial and temporal form in historical geography.

The subject matter of this thesis concerns the historical development of the Cromwell quartz reef area during the period 1865-85. Although supplementing the proliferation of small scale historical geographies, it must be considered that the continued appraisal of the primary unit area by the historical geographer, is necessary to provide a 'resource pool' of geographically processed primary material, for use in larger scale research.

In its broadest terms, the essay attempts to determine:

a. the causes of the rise and subsequent decline in prosperity of the Cromwell reefs quartz mining industry;

b. the differing social attitudes to the development of a quartz mining industry, and associated society, in the Cromwell quartz reefs area during the two decades after 1865, and

c. the extent to which this ideal was frustrated in materialising due to retarding environmental influence, a conflict between contemporary percepts and reality, or more realistically, a combination of these factors. [extract from Introduction]