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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5923, 30 August 1890, Page 2

Between the South Pacific and Southern Cross Petroleum Companies something like £100,000 have been spent, in the Poverty Bay district iv the vain endeavor to strike mineral oil springs. The experience of the shareholders in those ventures will go a long way to discourage outsiders from similiw enterprises. And yet, perhaps, nothing is so fascinating as tho search for hidden wealth iv new countries. In Gisborne there are still people who thoroughly j believe that the question " oil or no oil ' has not been settled on the East Coast. We notice by our recent exchanges that small company has been started with a capital of _10u0 in £10 shares, to further explore the last well sunk by the defunct Pacific Company. It. may bo that operations were stopped just, when a little more work would have crowned tho enterprise with success. Every goldficld furnishes plenty of stories of abandoned claims which on being resumed yielded splendid results. And we hope for the sake of Poverty Bay that another iustanco of the same kind will reward tbo faith of Gisborne iv the mineral oil resources of the district. Nobody disputes the fact that there is oil; it oozes up from tho soil, it floats en stagnant pools: it makes its presence known when a lighted match is applied to the muddy ground. Where aro its sources ? The earth has been pierced to a depth of 1300 feet; well after well has been sunk, but no oil spring has been struck. Whether the right sites for boring have been chosen ; whether it would not have been better to have tried the plains in preference to the hills, we must leave to others to decide. At Makuraka an ait<_i_n well supplied both water and gas, the latter being the best indication of either oil or shale in the neighborhood. Makaraka is only four miles from Gisborne, and if there should be any further trial-borings that place offers as" good prospects as any other.