COAL MINES COMMISSION.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 10955, 3 May 1901, Page 3

COAL MINES COMMISSION.

(PRESS ASSOCIATION T-_r_EQ-U__t.) WELLINGTON, May 2. At the Coal Co_n__i_-ion, Mr Martin Kennedy, formerly owner of the Brunner ________ emphatically denied that the Coalpit Heath and Wallsend mines were de__bera.t>Efiy wrecked for the benefit of other properties. It was absolutely of no use to reopen either of those mines, as they -were wxwfced out. Speaking generally, he b-liwed coal-mining had paid, but doubted if in the Grey Valley it had repaid the capital put into it. He was nob prepared to express ajn opinion as to the amount of coal remaining on tbe West Coast. Sir Jaimes Hector wag further examined on the coal measures of the colony. The Commissioners put before him an estimate of the coal in New Zealand appearing in the Mines Record, purporting to- ba made from figures supplied by •h____se_f. At the time those surveys were made, said Sir James, very few workings had been opened up, and the estimates had had to be very cohsideraibly modified. For sai-ty's sake he eOiould divide thorn by two. In MokaJU an .immense additional area had been discovered, but ve'iy little -work had been done. His estimate of the Kawakarwa leas_hold was 2,500,000 tons, and of the Waikaito 51,000,000 tons. The 'Chairman: Three-quarters of a million tons were taken from Kawakawa. Sir James, continuing, said the ooal mines in New Zealand .were in a totally different formation from the ordinary coal mines at Home, and the rules .and experience gained from the working of the mines a* Home could not be applied ir this country. The estimate of the Brunner mine was fairly good fi the part that had been worked, but the working had been stopped by faults, so that the estimate could not apply generally. (At Mount Rodh'ester, in the Buller "district, it was known from the first that it would bo a difficult field to work on account of the faults, and that they wouldl have to do a igrea* deal tA stone driving to connect one patch of ooal with, another. No one could have anticipated the remarkable faults of the Wallsend mine. The Chairman of th© Conmmiss-on stated .hart, putting aside the Blackball mine, tha only coal in that district art. present known was about 200,000 tons, estimated .to be available in the Brunner mine. On tihe one hand the C/omniissdoi. had estimates of 37,000,000 to 53,000,000 tons, and on the other hand they ij£re told tha* 200,000 would close the Brunner mine. Sir James Hectod said that in, view" of the faults, it was very difficult to make a statement on tbSe point desired by tiha Commi-sion, (but he had no douibt -lua* the original estimates were much' above mark. Tihe 37,000,000 tons' estimate included a large quantity of ooal supposed] to exist .in the Wallsend mine in which the seoans deteriorated at a depth and becaane mixed with stone. The area of coal measures at Reefton Was not properly known. MJokau coal dad not._.go very far north, but he believed it extended thro-ughi to Tangarakau, in tihe Wanganui dfctnet. On coming inito -the Waikato ha&n, beyond Te Kuiti, coal ,was met with a.gain, but brown coal, not equal to the Mokau ooal, which wa. an excellent seam coal.