HOW I SPENT MY EASTER HOLIDAYS.

Southern Cross, Volume 6, Issue 9, 4 June 1898, Page 11

HOW I SPENT MY EASTER HOLIDAYS.

I spent this year’s Easter holidays at Mataura. Mataura is situated on the banks of the Mataura river, which is spanned by a suspension bridge. It is a very interesting place to stay at, because there are a number of things worth seeing, each as the freezing works, the paper mill, and the lignite pits. First, I vrill attempt to describe the freezing

works, which are worth going a long way to see. The machinery is worked by water power. The slaughtering department comes first. After a sheep is killed, skinned, and cleaned, it is pushed along on an overhead railway to a man who weighs it, pats a weight ticket on it, and then prsses it along to the cooling-room. From the cooling-room the carcass is sent down a shoot to the freezing chamber, where the temperature is 10° below zero. To understand the process of freezing we must now go to the engine-room. A large wheel works a piston which compresses the air that is contained in a cylinder, and thus heats it. The air then rushes up pipes into cooling tanks, and then passes down other pipes into the expansion cylinder, where, being suddenly expanded, it becomes frozen, and then passes along other pipes, and enters the freezing chamber. After the mutton is frozen it is ready for export. While speaking of the freezing works it is interesting to notice the numbers of sheep and rabbits which are brought to the works. One day while I was there 30,000 rabbits were delivered. It would be employment for anybody to count the flocks of sheep and carts of rabbits which arrive daily. I will now endeavour to describe the paper mill When the rags and bits of paper are first brought to the mill they are torn into shreds by machinery. Then they are boiled. After being boiled the rags are put in ‘ beaters ’ In these beaters there are knives which chop the rags into pulp. The pulp is then let down into the storing chests. There are two of these chests, each containing an ‘ agitator.’ These ‘ agitators’ keep the pulp moving, because if they did not the solid matter would go to the bottom, leaving the water on fop. The pulp is then run out, and it goes along a wire gauze which has suction boxes underneath. These suck the water out of the pulp, which then passes round ten heated steam rollers and becomes paper. If it is for wrapping purposes, or for bags, the paper is put through the cutting machine, the knifes of which can be arranged to cut any size of paper. The bag paper is then taken to the bag-making department, where it is cat into shape by an instrument called the ‘ guillotine.’ It is then put in. the bag-making machine, piece by piece, and comes out ready for use. Want of space prevents me describing the lignite pits, which are situated about a mile from the township. Francis W. R. Wilcox, age years. Attending Park school, Invercargill.