THE RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES OF THE GREY.

Grey River Argus, Volume XXI, Issue 2723, 5 May 1877, Page 2

THE RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES OF THE GREY.

[by a special reporter.] No. IV. THE COAL CREEK MINE. Those who discovered the seams of coal outcropping on Coal Creek and Cliff Creek on what is now the lease of the embroyatic " Coal Creek Coal Mining and Railway Company Limited" must have been etabued with the true spirit of exploration, and have possessed in addition very great faith that their labors would ultimately be rewarded. Even now that a track has been cleared through the forest priraeral the live or six miles journey through the bush is no easy one, and requires on the part of the adventurous traveller some of those qualities that go towards the making of an acrobat. I was, upon my return, describing to a lady some of those exquisite bits of scenery which form the re ward of toil in this part of the country ; and, with that charming obliviousness of ways and means so characteristic of the sex, she announced her intention of organising forthwith a ptcrnic to one ef the spots I had been describing, ■ ' before," as khe said, f ,' the season ia too far' «Jvan<jed, ? ' J : should j tat

very much like to be one of the party. On the day upon which my visit to Coal Creek was paid, I had upon several occasions to regret that in the course of that development of which Darwin is the chief exponent Nature had not left to man that appendage which our quadrumanous ancestors hnd so useful under similar cir« cum3tance. Two hands and a pair of legs unincumbered by those mysterious garments of which we of the inferior aex know nothing are barely sufficient to get one over the country lying between Greymouth and the Coal Creek lease ;and consequently the ladie3 must, I am afraid, wait until the railway, of which I shall have more to say anon, shall have been completed. The first systematic search for coal in this direction seems to have been made by Mr Young (one of the firm of Young Bros., Surveyors) and Mr Bitty, who were led to believe that a seam wa3 to be met with in the vicinity of the creek from the general appearance of the country, and also from the fact that after floods pieces of coal were to be found in the debris washed down. But their seaich proved unsuccessful, and it was left to Messrs Rose and Fowler to drop upon the outcrop of the 10ft Beam which had become exposed upon the stripping of the surface by the action of the water in a state of flood. Subsequently tha 6ft seam was discovered exposed on the side of Cliff Creek, a stream running into Coal Creek at right angles, and a few chains below the spot where the first-mentioned seam outcrops. The 6ft seam, although, owing to the peculiar configuration of the country, apparently at a lower level than the 30ft seam, lies in reality about 130 ft above it ; and when the company haa got into order there will be no difficulty in working both seams simultaneously, and without the slightest interference one with the other. Indeed, looking to the lay of the coal and the part of the lease at which it outcrops, it would be impossible to conceive greater natural facilities for getting at what is practically an inexhaustible supply. The lease, which consists of 1036 acres, lies, be it explained, in the form of a parallelogram, the lower boundary of which runs N.N.E. and S.S.W., so that the lower corner is that nearest Greyraouth, and it is just here that the coal outcrops about 12fc above the bed of the creek. A level put in from this spot would run almost parallel with, and at a very short distance from thi3 lower boundary ; and a3 from this level the seam (I am now speaking of the 10ft) rises about 1 in 3 to the upper boundary of the lease, it follows that the entire bed can be worked from it. with the greatest facility. No winding machinery will be required, and the mine as it is opened up will virtually drain itself into \ the creak. In fact the lease lies, so far as drainage is concerned, in, the same position as regards Coal Creek as does the Brunner mine towards the Grey River ; and when | the railway has been completed it will be possible to work it even more economically, lf the reader will take a bopk and tilt it up on one corner, with the opposite (diagonal) corner leaning from him at an angle of 35 degrees, and imagine the outorop3 of coal tjo be at the corner nearest him on which the book rests, with the Coal Creek flowing past it, he will have a very fair idea of the general "lay" of the seam, and can at once form hia own ' opinion as to the ease with which it could be worked". These remarks apply equally to the Qfb seam a3 to the 10ft seam. What may be described as the back boundary_of the lease abuts on the lease of the Brunner Company ; and there is really no appreciable difference in the quility of the coal found in either. In fact, it may be said that the whole of th.c vast bed of coal lying in the triangle bounded by the Grey Rivet, the Pacific Ocean, and the TenMile Creek, is of one character, the difference observable in portions miles apart being no greater than are to be met with in any one lease —the Brnnner to wit. The following are the analyses of samples, taken promiscuously from the two seams on the Coal Creek lease, made by Mr Skey, Government Analyst: — "Both samples are hard, coherent, massive, caking coals, of excellent quality j they yield but a smalt proportion of ash, and this is but slightly ferruginous. The coke does not puff up to any notable extent, but is firm, solid, and very coherent when made at a high temperature, The amount of water in both these coals ranges somewhat higher than what is found in bituminous coal generally. The following represents their approximate compositions : —

Notes : 7ft seam — Powder, black, brown; ash, brown. Coal ia slightly resiniferous, is generally lustrous, and feebly laminated, shows in parts a woody structure. 10ft seam — Powder brown, ash grey ; contains a few nodules of reainous matter, is slightly more lustrous than the former, and is still more feebly laminated." Before proceeding to describe the country lying between Cobden and the lease through which the proposed line of railway must pasß, it may be as well to glance at the calculations upon which the promoters base their appeal to the public to assist them in forming a limited liability company. The estimated cojjt of coal per ton, delivered at the port is 63 9d, 'made up as follows : — Royalty, 6d ; trucking and screening, 3s 6d ; carriage and shipping, 91 ; maintenance, Is ; management, la. ESTIMATED RECEIPTS. 4Q.00Q tons annually, at lla 6d , f . £23,000 Carriage of goods, timber, and pas? sengers „, „. „, ..1 509 £23,500 ESTIMATED EXPENDITURE. Cos 1 -, of raising and shipping! at @3 -9.1 per ton ..,£12,500 showing a profit of Lll,ooo for the year. This estimate is based on the assumption that only 40,000 tons are annually exported, which quantity can easily be shipped into the class, of vessels now trading to this port, but as the harbor works are in course of progress the promoters are confident that the quantity exported would be increased every year as the harbor works progress, and that soon there will bp nq difficulty in exporting 80,000 tons annually,' at a very small extra cost of management. It is proposed to form a company with a capital of L 40,000, L 25,000 of which will be required to construct a railway between Cobden and the lease. The route has been carefully surveyed by Messrs Young Bros., of Greymouth, and they feel confident that not more than the sum mentioned — L 25,00 be required to make the lj.ne (colling stock excepted),

and put the comany in a position to place coal on board vessels lying alongside a quay a Cobden. In order to form some conception of the character of the country to bs passed through, the reader will imagine that he is accompanying me in my tramp to the lease along the cleared track, which track follows as closely as may be the surveyed line of railway — or perhaps more correctly speaking the survey follows the track inasmuch, as the latter was cleared first by Mr Wallace, and, with but slight deviation, Messrs Young Bros, followed it in their survey. It was a fine clear morning in the early part of the week when, with a companion, I* crossed from this side of the river to Oobden, and walked in the direction of Messrs Wallace and Holder's mill, where we were met by Mr Wallace, and another gentleman,, and, accompanied by two boya, carrying the necessary creature comforts, we started on our arduous tramp through the bush. To return for a moment to Cobden, the line will start from a quay the site of which has yet to be fixed, and, after rounding the base of the hill, will cross Coal Creek on a bridge of 80ft span, at a distance from the quay of about half a mile. So far the direction will be nearly northerly ; but immediately after crossing the creek it will run in a north-easterly direction across the flat and nearly parallel with the creek. Across these flats the line will be carried on an embankment averaging about 7ft in height bo as to preserve the level, and at the same time raise it above the influence of floods. At 2 miles 10 chains Bridge Creek will be crossed with a bridge having a span of 40ft. At 2 miles 50 chains will be the juuetion of the lines branching off towards Coal Creek and Point Elizabeth, the line surveyed so far answering both purposes. It is with that towards Coal Creek that we have, however, at present to do. Still following the course of the creek it runs through remarkably level country, lightly timbered, lying between the left bank of the river and a series of spurs running down from the main Brunner ridge for a distance of between two and three miles from the junction. The earthworks in this section are of the lightest description, and the only bridges that will have to be built will be those over Evan's Creek, Linner Creek (60ft), Camp's Creek (12ftt) Batty's Creek (60ft), and Start Creek (20ft). At this point, 5 mile 336 chains, the only difficult part of country comes, and it can oaly be said to be difficult a3 compared with the (extraordinarily favorable nature of that already passed through, while the distance remaining to be traversed ia very short. Two routes from this point to the outcrop of the coal present themselves — one by crossing the creek, which here takes a sudden bend to tb,e right, by means of a bridge ldOfc clear in the span, and after running along the right bank for a few chains, re-crossing it from immediately opposite where the 10ft seam shows itself. Into the angle formed by the bend of the river a spur from the B runner range projects itself, and the other method of reaching the coal would be by driving a tunnel 14 chains in length through it, thus avoiding the crossing and rercrossing of the creek. The question is one solely of cost, and. what the expense of tunnelling as compared with bridging would be depends altogether upon the nature of rock to be passed through in the spur alluded to. Tliis can only be ascertained by boring, and in all probability the original idea will be adhered to. .All the timber required for bridges, culverts, and sleepers, &c, can be obtained along the line, and as the transport of rails will be an easy matter after the first few chains have been laid there is no reason why the line should not be completed quite' within the sum mentioned by the surveyors. The guage adopted would be that of the Government lines, viz., 3fc 6tn.

So much for the practical part of the undertaking. To the tourist who cares nothing for the utilitarian view of the question, and delights only in the beauties of Nature, the construction of a railway through the district means only a detraction from the wonderful beauty of the scenery to be here ir^at with. Whether in "the depth of the forest -where the range of vision is circumscribed by the dense semi-tropical vegetation of the New Zealand bush j on some elevation where the eye wanders over miles ..of hill and valley bounded on one side by the Pacific O^ean, and on the other by snow-clad mountains that rival those of Switzerland in grandeur ; by the precipitous banks of Coal Creek, quiet now but in certain seasons a roaring torrent ; at the foot of one of those cascades which were they 4n older coun tries, people would travel hundreds of tnilea to see ; wherever one wanders there 13 everything to draw attention away from the purely practical view of the matter— as to how far Nature may be made to further the end of commerce. The construction of a railway will not, of course, quite destroy the charm of the scenery, but I am not sorry that it waa my fate to wander in this direction before the advent of the iron horae. An qlfresw luncheon within a fews yards of thVbut6rops of the seam, with our "billy" boiled over a roaring fire of coak taken from it, was not to be despised ; and the day'a outing, brought to a termination at the hospitable table of Mr Wallace, followed by a pull down the river to the Mawhera Qaay, will not soon be forgqtten by me, I have now— unless an opportunity of visiting the Ten-Mile and the burning seam should present itself — completed my inspection of the Grey Valley coal measures ; and I can only repeat what strugk me at the outset, that witfy capital to develop her resources in this direction alone and with a harbor r endered safe and aocessable at all times, the future of Grey mouth is assured,

71 Fixed-carboa Hydro carbon, &c, "Water Ash ft Seam. 62-27 28-68 ?'sil'sf li LOffc Seam. 5v36 37 13 5 73 178