Taranaki Steel Sand.

Cromwell Argus, Volume II, Issue 102, 24 October 1871, Page 6

Taranaki Steel Sand.

—o — gentleman who lias ju3fc come to Now Zealand by the Halcyone, paid a visit on the 23hh ult. to Mount Cook Barracks, where the experimental operations under Mr Smith, Hie Government armourar, a'-o going on. Coming direst from Sheffield with ten year-' experience as a manager of a largo stool company there, his opinion is specially valuable. When he say,i that he was delighted and surprised at what he saw, ho was not using arloquate language to express his state <>?

mind. Examining the ingot of steel which wo dor;cribod the other day, he pi'onounoed it superior to tlio iio:sb English steel. Ho undertakes to sell 10 ),0l)0 tons of it hi England at an advance upon the price now ruling there, via., £3O a ton. It is, in his opinion, lit for the fiaeafc kinds of cutlery, fie examined the furnace and sand, and on learning the simple process by which in two operations the same result is attained as in fourteen operations at Home, he could not find words enough to express his surprise and pleasure. The experiment of Mr Smith is, in his eyes, convincing evidence that New Zealand has in the hitherto " useless sand" a mine of wealth greater than in all her goldfields.