"NOTES ON THE COALFIELDS OF NEW ZEALAND,"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11659, 16 February 1900, Page 5

"NOTES ON THE COALFIELDS OF NEW ZEALAND,"

A '" LIMITED SUPPLY." (Fnou O*cm Oww Correspondent.) •' LONDON, January 5. At the last meeting of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, a paper entitled "Notes on the Coalfields of New Zealand" was read by Mr James Park, M.lrist.M.M,, and a report of over two columns* in length" is give to it by the Mining Journal. As an introduction to his subject, Mr-Park remarked : " Steam is the great motive power of the age. consequently the growth and de-. velopment of manufactures and shipping must be largely dependent on the production of coa!. The possession of coal has proved a dominant factor in industrial progress, and recent events have shown that sea power, the ambition of every maritime nation, cannot be maintained in an effective form without it. A vaguo impression prevails in the minds of many that the coal reserves of New Zealand exist in almost illimitable quantity, and it may therefore be of some little interest to discuss briefly the quality and quantity of the coal available in this colony." Three principal division into which New. Zealand's workable coal divides itself are then given, with the physical characteristics and average composition as summarised by Sir James Hector. Then, after dealing with the ago of coal, Mr Park proceeds to say: "The seeming stratigraphieal conformity between the Oamaru stone, the upper member of the coal measures, and the Amuri limestone ■ has caused some New Zealand geologists to fall into the error of correlating the grey marly clays under the Oamaru stone with the Amuri limestone of secondary age, and the Waihaa marly greensands, containing a fauna teeming . only with tertiary forms, with the glaueonitic greensands containing only (secondary forms.* Hence the use of the term cretaceo-tertiary which has been applied to this anomalous series, which is believed to have a truly tertiary facies in one locality and a purely secondary facies in another. ...

" Coal, lias never been found below Amuri limestone or glauconitio greensands, and never will be; but large sums of money have been spent through misdirection in prospecting areas occupied by. these rocks, and show tho necessity of a systematic knowledge of field geology to the mining engineer engaged' in the development of coal areas. The recent age of the coal measures of New Zealand presents a marked distinction to that of the coal measures of Britain, Continental Europe, North America, and China of carboniferous age, and the New South "Wales measures of permiotriaEsie ago. Up till nearly the middle of the present century, geologists were strongly imbued with the opinion that true coals were confined to tho strata lying between the old and new red sandstone, and confirmed their belief by adopting the age-name ' Carboniferous' for the coal-bearing strata of Europe. Subsequent discoveries of true coal in Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, and even lower tertiary strata have conclusively shown that, given the necessary geological conditions, coal could be formed in any period of the earth's history. It is perhaps worthy of mention that while the carboniferous coals are mainly composed of the remains of ferns, lycopodiums, and other aoro'gens, the tertiary coals of New Zealand are the result of forest vegetation of long-con-tinued growth, among which dicotyledons are largely represented, including the oak, laurel, cypress, cycads, and conifers. The remains of ferns are also abundant. Since younger tertiary time 3 New Zealand ,has presented the appearance of a massive mountain chain partially submerged' in the ocean, presenting few areas of large extent and favourable situation for the growth and accumulation of coal -vegetation. The result of this configuration has oeen the production of numerous isolated coalfields, mostly of small extent, and all of a.littoral or marginal character." After giving the estimates of the quantity of available coal, Mr Park's' naper closed with the following observations:—"The numerous small coal areaß scattered throughout the country have given rise to the popular, but erroneous, impression that coal exists in very large quantities; but, as a matter of fact, the grand total of all the different varieties only contains the annual output'of Great Britain about five times, while the vast undeveloped coal measures of Northern China, which have been described by Richthofen as covering an area of many thousand miles, couM bold all the coal of New Zoaland in tho comer of their waistcoat pocket. "In 1878 the output was 162,218 tons; in. 1888 it was 613,985 tons; and in 1897, 840,713 tons, tho rate of increase during tho past seven vrars beimr about 30.000 tons a year. In 1897, 110,907 tons of coal were imported. With her comparatively limited supply of coal, it is quite obvious that New Zealand can never be a serious competitor for the eea.bourne coal trade of the Pacific."