COAL AND IRON.

Otago Witness, Issue 659, 16 July 1864, Page 3

COAL AND IRON.

(From the Sydney Morning Herald.) It is with pleasure we learn that the works of preparation at the Fitzroy iron mines are proceeding with vigor, and that before very long the first Australian blast furnace wiil be in operation, iqd tbe first sample of merchantable iron pro'luced from" native ore will be saleable. There has been so muih " hope deferred " about the Fitzroy so many promises held out which have only been followed by disappointment, that it niy sepm contrary to experience to anticipate my immediate result of a favorable nature. But i'rcrni the accounts we hetr, theie seeraa fair reason to believe that a beginning in the iroa inaaufaolure will tt length be made. We hope it may prove as we anticipate, for it is getting •ash time that our mineral resources in respect of iroa should be tapped. The limits of the iron-field at Fitzroy have not. wehelieve been determined. The omntryaround is only half explored, and from its broken charwter is rather difficult to explore. -But there is no {round for supposing that the quantity of iron is limited. At any rate, there is a superabundance of fuel for arasltiog purposes. In addition to Hie coal which hasalrealy been worked by the company, large fresh deposits have recently been .ii3covered. We hear that Mr Mackenzie, the examiner of southern coal fields, his been on a ramble through the district, and has discovered, -ibout four miles from the mine, a seam of coal fully thirty feet thiak, and to all appearance, of excellent quality. The seam is disclosed by the gorge of the Nattai River. "This is a thicker seam than any yet found in the colony. The thickest at present worked, va. believe, is at the Car Jiff mine, in Lake Macquarie. but this new seam at Fitzroy bea^s it altogether. The coal is too far from town to be of any value for cxpart, but as an almost boundleia supply of fuel for local manufacturing purposes, it may be of very great value hereafter. A seam thirty f et thick, after making ample allowance for waste iv tiking out. partings, and fir bauds of inferior coal, would furnish something like 30 000 tons of coal to the acre. A. smelting furnace including: a puddling furnace, will consume as much as 120 tons a day, and at this rate an acre of the coal hnd would last for nearly a year. So that there ia nothing to fear ou the score of s.wcity of fuol. The ereat cause of the cheipaes3 of iron in England has been the fact that the ore is found in such close proximity to coal. We have precisely the same advantage in this cilony, and there is, therefore, every facility lor our obtaining similar result*. Of late years, *ince railways have cheapened carriage, the iron-fields in the south of England are bein R re-opened. The *outh wa« the original scene ot the iron manufacture in England, wood bein* the only fuel used or known to be suitible in those days. But the industry waa extinguished partly by the exhaustion of the forests, and atill more by the destruction inflicted during the war* of the devolution, most of the works being the pr>perty of royalist families. After the discovery was made that iron ore could be smelted by coal, the iron manufacture became tied to the coal districts, and iron was not worth working except where coal was close by. The geological exploration of this colony is still iv its infancy; but, so far as we know at present, all our stores of iron ore are within easy re.ich of coal. At Harfcley, at Port Stephens, at Fitzroy, at Brisbane Water, at Ulawarra, this ia tbe case. The only want is the absence of lime ; here is plenty ia the colony, but it is not always to be found close to the iron.

Why are cats like unskilful surgeons ?—Because they mew-tUI-late (mutilate) and destroy patience (patients). - *