New Zealand - Coal Mining - The entrance to the new James Mine in Point Elizabeth, seven miles from Greymouth. - 22/9/1921 - Unknown Photographer - Originally published in "The Auckland Weekly News" #336575 - The state’s Point Elizabeth mine, established near Rūnanga in 1904, revived mining in the Grey River valley. By 1914 the area was producing a quarter of the country’s coal, and the West Coast, in all, contributed three-fifths. - Europeans began mining coal in New Zealand in the 1840s. At first, men went underground and dug out the coal with picks and shovels. - In the early 1900s men used compressed-air machines in mines to cut coal from the rock. They also used explosives to blast the rocks. The coal was loaded into railway wagons and taken out. In the later 1900s they used high-pressure water jets to cut the coal out, and it was carried to the earth’s surface in a flow of water.