COLLIERIES IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4205, 11 September 1874, Page 2

COLLIERIES IN NEW ZEALAND.

The following timely letter appears in the Sydney Morning Herald, in answer to one that we have not seen : Sir, —While agreeing with Mr. R. Adams as to the desirability of exploration being made re the coal seams near our harbor of Sydney, I find that he is in error as to the localities of the local deposits in New Zealand. Mr. Adams says, “Hitherto all the coal found in New Zealand is far back.” Having some knowledge, from actual inspection, of the coal mines of the G-rey River district, and from close reading of the reports, &c., of Messrs. Hector, Haast, Blackett, and Burnett, Government geologists and engineers, I venture to submit the following : The Nelson Coal Mine on the north side and the Westland Mine on the south side of the Grey River, both working on the Brunner seam, are only seven miles from the port at Greymouth, between which a railway is now being made at a cost of £74,000. The Brunner seam, is 16 feet thick of clean coal, and has been proved, by underground workings which I personally inspected in 1868, to be of* uniform quality, and superior to anything that has been discovered in this Colony, as has been proved over and over again by analysis experiments at Woolwich Dockyard, Melbourne Gas Works, Colonial steamers, &c., &c. Steam colliers could be constructed to carry from 400 to 500 tons of coal, which would . cross the bar at the mouth of the Grey. The Brunner seam has been recently proved by borings and sinkings to extend for miles southward; and northward, it is seen at Mount Rochfort, the Ngakawau River on the coast, and the Mokihinui River, on to Cape Farewell, a distance of nearly 100 miles. The Mount Rochfort Plateau, with its five seams of workable coal, none less than five feet thick, giving a total thickness of thirtyeight and a half feet—a portion of this same Grey River and Mount Davy coalfield, only twelve miles in a direct line from the town of Westport,'with a port said to be superior to the Grey—is estimated to contain, after making very large allowances for loss by dykes, &c., 322,662,500 tons, or upwards of 1,000,000 tons a year for 322 years. A railway has been surveyed, and tenders are now invited for the construction of a railway between Westport and the coalfield. A mine is being worked at the mouth of the Ngakawau River, eighteen miles north of Westport. The seam is sixteen feet thick ; and Dr. Hector, the -director of the geological survey of New Zealand, says “its quality is excellent.” The harbor is easily available in average weather for vessels drawing eight feet. I might have referred to, the immense deposits of brown coal in the Province of Otago, Middle Island, and the Provinces of Auckland, Wellington, New Plymouth, and Hawke’s Bay, all contiguous to moderately good (one or two to really good) harbors; but, as it is not probable this coal will interfere to any great extent with the demand for a better kind, I deem it not desirable. In conclusion, I have no hesitation whatever in saying that 'when the New Zealand collieries, containing very superior coal for steam and other purposes, are fully developed, very little coal indeed will be exported from New South Wales to New Zealand.—Yours faithfully, John Usher, Jun., C.E. August 25.