HIKURANGI COAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8090, 3 November 1887, Page 5

HIKURANGI COAL.

(by telegraph.— special COBRXSPONDENT.] Wellington, Wednesday. Mb. Hobbs has secured Dr. Hector's report on tfce .sample of HikuraDgi ooal, and submitted aqd posted it to-day to Whangarei. He urges • that a ton of the coal be sent to the Auckland Gas Co, for experiment, I append the analysis and report:—Glance, or lemi-bituminous coal: A moderately '"tider aoal, in this respect resembling the Suvafeawa coal. It is lustrous, and yields it black-brown powder and a small quantity of reddish ash. It grits, or in other words, the particles adhere by slight fusion at a high temperature, but it does cot form a marketable coke. Its specific gravity is 12.14 (water being 1,000), so that the bulk of a ton would be about the same as the average of the coal raised on the west coast of the South Island, fend much under the bulk of a ton of common brown coal. It will be a good coal for domestic use, and also for steam generating, either in locomotive or marine boilers. It is also a good smelting coal, and gives a good welding heat for forge work. The coal now submitted shows an improvement on umplee collected in the same locality some years ago. The analysis is as follows :— Fixed carbon, 52.76 ; hydro-carbon, 31.85; water, 11.98; ash, 3.41. Evaporative power, 6S3lb«.