CORING EXTRAORDINARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2661, 15 March 1905, Page 14

CORING EXTRAORDINARY.

WORK AT THE LOVELL'S FLAT PIT.

The work of boring, surrounded as it is with a sense of the possibilities of future wealth through the discovery of minerals, metals, water, oil, etc., has an interest peculiar to itself and somewhat fascinating to most people. Especially is this the case where upon the result of the operations depends the welfare of an industry and those employed therein, when the feeling is intensified a hundredfold. This directly applies to the situation at Lovell's Flat, where work of that description has recently beoin in progress. It [has been current topic for some time that the end of the supply of workable coal was in sight, but this is a report that has an unhappy knack of associating itself with other mines as well, and the position can only be surmised from the following. Acting under instructions from the owner (Mr Glendining), boring operations were commenced about two months ago by Mr Macallister, who is well known all over the province for his work in this direction. The bore was prosecuted in a gully to the right of where the locomotive engine shed stands, a few chains from the present workings. So well did Mr Macallister succeed that the men got down 356 ft in four weeks, a depth that, I am assured, has never yet been equalled in the colony. Such record work speaks volumes for Mr Macallister and his men, and from personal observation I can speak of the smooth and workmanlike manner in which the work was carried on. However, I am not able to be so congratulatory to Mr Glendining, for with the exception of an inch or two here and there down through the strata no payable seam of coal was struck, and the bore was abandoned at that depth. Mr Glendining'e enterprise deserved better at the hands of Fortune than that ?jl tfe« expense should go for nothing, but at the same time he expressed himself highly pleased with what Mr Macallister had done and with the way the bore was carried out. In view of this I express the hope that the pessimistic reports in regard to the mine may long go unfulfilled. — Milton Qojrjsjiondenti,