New Zealand - Mining - Working the only Mercury Mine in Australasia - 1944 To Watch video open the photo link with the Red Play Arrow at left under photo enlargement... Mercury Mines - Mercury was only every commercially extracted from three places in New Zealand: Puhipuhi, Ngawha (Northland), and Mackaytown (Coromandel Peninsula). - The Puhipuhi site is unique, because there remains a great deal of the processing plant machinery – such as the metal cooling towers 12 metres high, a cast iron extractor fan, and part of a giant rotating furnace. - For the cost of £2 000, a dam was built across Waikiore Stream to ensure a water supply. - The dam and the lake it created are present at the site today. - The mercury mines were not a pleasant place to work. - The men who operated the processing plant were in constant danger of inhaling toxic mercury vapour. In 1935 they were suffering from highly inflamed gums and loose teeth – symptoms of mercury poisoning. (Reference: read more at https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/northland/places/whangarei-area/puhipuhi-mercury-mines/) Video: Weekly Review no. 167 (1944) Archives New Zealand New Zealand's National Film Unit presents Weekly Review No. 167 (1944) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzR5-y6BSI