C—2a

Garvey Creek Mine This mine is not yet in production. Owing to the abnormally wet spring and early summer and the difficult country, the access road to the mine was not completed until December, consequently the erection of mine buildings and screens was not commenced until early in the New Year. An extensive slip at the terminus together with unstable foundations necessitated a re-location of this portion of the access road, the re-siting of the mine buildings, screen-ing-plant, &c., the driving of a- short rock tunnel, and the construction of a sidling tramway. A screening-plant is now installed ; storage bins and mine buildings are in course of erection. The clearing of debris along the outcrop of the vertical seam above the mine mouth on the north-west side of Garvey Creek was commenced early in the New Year. This work and also the construction of a sidling tramway between the outcrop on the southeast side of the creek and the screens have been delayed by bad weather and difficulty in obtaining suitable plant. Four prospecting drives, two to the north-west and two to the south-east, were driven in the vertical seam in Garvey Creek. These drives and crosscuts driven from them have proved the seam in the vicinity of the proposed mine entrance to exceed 50 ft. in thickness from wall to wall. The coal in this locality is of good quality, of coking rank, and of varying degrees of hardness. On the north-west side of the creek the seam in the prospecting tunnels is intersected by a narrow zone of stone and dirt bands. This zone appears to thicken to the south-east and splits the seam in that direction. To the north-west irregular intrusions of stone and shale occur in various parts of the seam. This seam has been traced by surface prospecting for a distance of 34 chains north-west of Garvey Creek and for 10 chains to the south-east of the creek. The average thickness exceeds 25 ft., and with minor exceptions the coal is hard and of good quality. The dips vary from 60 to 90 degrees from the horizontal. Sixteen men are employed on prospecting work, development, and the erection of plant. Wangaloa Opencast This opencast, which is operated by the Public Works Department on behalf of the State Coal-mines, produced 32,023 tons of coal. The following report covers the operations of the opencast for the year ended 31st March, 1947. Stripping.—The first line of stripping down the swamp has progressed, in spite of difficulties of weather and terrain, to the probable limit of opencast mining, and a start has been made on a second cut on the south side of the valley. Up to the present no back-filling to the open cut has been possible, but when this procedure becomes practical a consequent increase in stripping-rate and lowering of costs should follow. Approximately 103,000 cubic yards of stripping has been excavated during the year, and at 31st March, 66,000 cubic yards of this was advance stripping, representing 42 per cent, of the stripping over approximately 50,000 tons of coal, roughly 12,000 tons of this coal being completely exposed. These figures are necessarily only approximate, as a seam of mixed coal and mudstone of varying thickness lies over all the good coal. Of this seam, which attains up to 12 ft. of thickness, an average of 50 per cent, is saved as good coal by the use of drag-line and Marshall dump-car.

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