COAL PROSPECTING.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14545, 25 October 1917, Page 7

COAL PROSPECTING.

r A SUCCESS AND A FAILURE

(From Our Parliamentary Correspondent.)

Wellington, Oct. 22. Encouraged by a coal "diyiner," a Wellington company put down bores near Kaitoke, about thirty niiles from Wellington on the slopes .of the Rimutakas, in the hope of discovering payable coal. The venture was assisted by the Mines Department, whicß, lent its diamond drill and casing until the bore had reached a depth of 118 ft, when it was removed. The syndicate, Lowever, persevered, though the latest report of the Geological Survey Depart-'' ment indicates that there is not much

hope. "The nature and geologic age of the rock being drilled, the field evidence indicating its- probable continuance in depth-, and the absence of coaloutcrops all combine," states the report, "to destroy any hope of a workable coal-seam being found underground in the locality. The whole scheme is another example of the reckless folly of investors trusting to tie opinion •of a 'diviner,' when expert opinion, if sought, could have readily shown the hopelessness of' the venture." On the otter hand, the report contains details of a very extensive aroa of brown coal of good quality in the Waitewhena district, North Tarahaki. Waitewhena district consists of a number of steep sujbrnature ridges cut from ■a. thick series of almost horizontal bed>s. of sandstone and mudstone by the southward flowing Waitewhena. stream and its. tributaries. Most of the beds' are fine-grained sandstone and form steep faces, in which at many places beams of coal crop out, but it is only occasionally that the roof and floor are exposed, so that the full, thickness of tie seam is not readily ascertained. At one outcrop in a north-east branch of the Mangaroho stream .the coal is at least 18ft thick, at five ""other outcrops loft, and at twenty-four more the tlickness is at least* 10ft. One outcrop ( can bo traced for two miles, but the coal extends farther than, it was followed. The opinion of the Department's Geologist is tfcat tho Waitewheiia- area is thus only the outcrop part of a much larger coal-bearing area which extends farther northward and south ward along the strike, and -as the beds dip to the westward an extensive body of uneroded coal may reasonably be expected to exist in that direction. An analysis of a,seam proved to be loft thick is as follows, with an analysis of Huntly coal in parentheses, for comparison:—Fixed carbon 12.62 (42,92). volatile hydro-carbons 39.23 (42.12),' water 15.23 (L-'.9(>), ash 2.93 (2.00).