OUR GREAT CEMENT RESOURCES.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1182, 18 July 1911, Page 4

OUR GREAT CEMENT RESOURCES.

THEIR EXTENT INDICATED.

(By Tcksraph.—Special Correspondent.) Auckland, July 17. It is well known that cement works arc established and flourish at Mahurangi and at Limestone Island, but Mr. Harrison, of Wlinngarei, who was interviewed here, considers that they but suggest the beginning of an enormous industry, Between Whangerei and the Bay of Islands, he said, there is a huge belt of limestone close to Ihe sou, traversed by the railway, and represent ing an inexhaustible supply. It is almost natural cement, needing only burning wiHi tho coal which is found in the neighbourhood, and asking only some adjustment of ingredients to bo made almost perfect. The "hydraulic limestone" lies along with a white limestone, which is all that is required for the artifice that makes the best mixture possible. Mr. Harrison, in discussing tho question, referred to a statement in Professor James Parks's recent work on tho geology of New Zealand, in which it is stated'that concrete is the building material of the future, and New Zealand, with its enormous deposits of limestone and clays its water power and coal, its long seaboard and harbours, is destined to become tho centre of comcflt. manufacture for tho South Pacific.

"The racrea.se in the use of cement (he states) is phenomenal. In 1002 the quantity used in the United States was 8,000,000 barrels. Last year lie had been told that it was nearly 100,000,000 barrels. The cement works, now in operation in North Auckland, and drawing on soino of the very best raw materials in the world, wero not able to meet the demand upon them. Their factories, ho believed, were shortly to be established, and ho foresaw immense possibilities in tho industry. It would give employment to many men, and it was unlike goldminiuß, in that tho.visible supply was practically inexhaustible.