IRON WORKS SURVEY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23040, 18 May 1938, Page 18

IRON WORKS SURVEY

ACTIVITY AT ONEKAKA DETAILED INVESTIGATION [ill* TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT ] CHMSTCHURCH, Tuesday Work has already started on a complete official survey of the iron ore deposits at Oiiekaka, where the Government proposes to establish a plant to mine and work the supplies of ore in the locality. A largo Government survey party has for some weeks now been busy cutting tracks and establishing itself at the site of old ore quarries high up the Onekaka hillside. No proper estimates of the supplies in the entire area have previously been taken out. As a result a thorough survey under expert supervision will be undertaken on the three, ore blocks— Parapara, Onekaka and Takurua,. There are prospects that the State's activities will give the South Island an up-to-date and entirely new town of considerable size. A marine survey is going on along the coast, apparently as a preliminary to the construction of a new wharf capable of handling the coal to be brought by steamer from the West Coast. The Town Planning Adviser to tho Government, Mr. J. W. Mawson, it is stated, has made a close survey of what appears to be an ideal site for a large town a mile north along the coast from the present wharf. A high official from the Department of Agriculture is reported to have made investigations among primary producers in the area with the idea of discovering the food-producing capacity of the district.

An aerial survey of the whole area has also been made, and aerial maps prepared of tho sito of tho deposits and the reported site of the new town. There have also been investigations into the availablo water supply and the existing means of access and transport of necessary materials and goods.