A RICH COUNTRY.

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 March 1911, Page 8

A RICH COUNTRY.

INTERVIEW WITH AN EXPERT

PROSPECTOR. LAND FOR SETTLEMENT READY , FOR SELECTION. . , BRIGHTON COAL SEAMS. Mr J ~P. Watson, a practical gold and coal miner, has now been on his own account prospecting throughout the Grey and Buller Counties, and is at present engaged in a close examination of the j locality of Brighton, the nearest post office that he is in reach of being Tiromoana, j near which is presumed to be a reliable i source of good coal, but which Mr Watson discounts very considerably since he has I been over the country. In the first place •he says that the visible coal, though of ! a good anthracite quality, appears only in | big slips in the quartzite formation, and ! ioos not appeal to him at all as a payable proposition as it is only in small seams, : winch are as , nearly perpendicular as possible and therefore expensive to work. I These erect columns, as they may be termed, run down to the limestone formation beneath which large bodies of water ■run underground to the sea. For instance, on Fox’s Greek on the left branch, there are several of these small perpendicular 1 seams of not more than 18 inches in dia--nieter, and though the coal is admitted to be''equal. to the Cardiff coal, the seams are too small to be of any profitable use. Then, again, at Dilemma Creek the coal at such a height as to make it next to impossible to mine it with any profit. Again at Buller Creek there is a'big slh> in which a seam of coal is seen, which being surrounded by quartzite formation, which confines it to a small dimension, and as it is standing un like the wall of a house there are no indications of any practical working there. , Farther south there is the Pareora seam which shows nothing better than a good kind of lignite of but little value at the -’istance from a market, and boring operations would in all probability show nothino-> much better than the outcrop does. The possiblity is that there is a large dip of coal below the limestone and away under the sea, but Mr Watson is of the opinion .after testing the borings and following the water courses to where, they disappear entirely under the limestone, that great trouble would follow on any proposition to work the coal flats from the incursion of the wafer on to the development works. That would, however, be a matter for mining engineers to cope with when the time comes for making the experiments. ~ That there is an enormous field of coal below the limestone formation and on the ■m the shore is not disputed, the only finestion being ( the way to deal with the large bodies of fresh, water that flow underground and which are never again ccon after entering the limestone region. The creeks are numerous and at times heavily swollen, yet not a drop from them is ever seen after they once disappear into the limestone, formation. Mr Watson considers it possible that the coal lies on a fiat with a breccia conglomerate on the ten of it. which carries a. hloomerine reef of secondary limestone, and his theory is tbe f unless there is an underground river, whi'T) would prove inimical to working a coal bed, it may be possible to strike a very rich bed of anthracite close to Brighton. But it will be, in bis opinion, ’ a matter of considerable expense even if there is no such riyer discovered. A PROBABLE SETTLEMENT.

Darin? the course of his prospecting he has roughly surveyed the hloclr of land Ivin cr hack from the seashore as far as the Sack survey line, which marks the eastern boundary of a fine block of good land that it is honed will soon be placed on the market by the Nelson Land Board. This begins at from about one and a-half miles of the coal outcrops and up to the present only one family has had any portion of it, but Mr Watson describes their plot as the eye of the whole 200,000 acres which should soon be placed on the market for selection. The O’Brien family have held their portion of tins block for over thirty years and have reared cattle galore on it, clearing a little bush at a time and enjoying the large profits derived from rearing a good herd of cattle. They are now getting on in years and are disposing of ‘hair interest to younger men, but they have enjoyed the blessing of seeing their place improved and are now prepared to retire from it. ...Of course, in such a barge area there must be patches of inferior land 'me Mr Watson has been over most of it and describes the quality of the .soil as superior to anything on the West Coast, and equal to most in the Dominion, within comparatively easy reach of Greymouth or Westport, the former for choice, owing te the Grey County road being so much more preferable for driving stock over. He puts it tersely that any man who can wait while he clears a hundred acres out 'f his 400 acre section should become independent by the time that he is done, as the land, when cleared, is capable of carrying an enormous quantity of stock. He is so sanguine of its capacity after seeing the O’Brien property, that he is now making enquiries with a view of obtaining a selection, when he will abandon the search after gold in the certainty of reaping a rich reward from the product of his own toil. He calculates that from £3 to £4 will clear the hush, which is not heavy on any part of the 200,000 acres, and will enable anyone to get their land under grass and that it will be an easy matter for the settler to buy his young stock in the spring and send them array in the winter to Greymouth or Westport fat and equal to any North Island cattle or sheep. Subsequently, of course, the dairying industry would he established, and a creamery'being provided, would afford another and an even larger source of profit. Of course, roads would have to he made through the block to enable settlers to get in and out. i

These are, in Mr Watson’s opinion, matters that require the attention of our local politicians, local bodies, etc., as the country is now lying neglected, whereas with a thriving farming and dairying population taking up the land on a 66 years lease, other industries would follow, and doubtless ways and means would he provided for even better communication with the centres of population, though as Mr Watson points out, the Grey County Council deserves every credit for the excellence of their road to within a few miles of the localitv.

Briefly he puts it, that this now neglected block of land, if sub-divided and let on the 66 years’ lease, is capable of carrying four hundred families with ease, each one having a four hundred-acre block. Each family might, and should, after the first clearing, turn over £IOOO a vear, so that in S few; years there would be a return of £4110,000 to the district. His estimate is based on what has already keen done, making a sufficient allowance for the few who would no doubt take up sections for speculative purposes only. This would he a more reliable record than that of a gold or coal mining company, whose profits in the shape of dividends usually go abroad, while this would be locally earned and spent. ALLUVIAL GOLD.

Meanwhile, said Mr Watson, in concluding a most interesting conversation, !:e is at present engaged on a fossick by himself for the alluvial gold which is to he found in the granite country on the higher levels, and havincr cleared a track, by which he conveys his stores and necessary tools, he is searching for the precious metal and, judging by appearance, is getting it too, That as Rudyard Kipling remarks, "is quite another question,’’ which our interviewer did pot care to follow up for obvious reasons.