The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 1886.

Feilding Star, Volume VII, Issue 154, 8 June 1886, Page 2

The Feilding Star. TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 1886.

Timber for Kimberley

Ist a lugubrious wail "an old miner" who says he knows the country well, has supplied the Lyttleton Times with information which that journal has acoepted, us perfectly sound and reliable, without exhibiting any of that spirit of incredulity or even enquiry which it is well to exercise in cases like the present. * We may accept as true the statements that town lots are rapidly increasing in value, also that flour is 10£ per lb, because both of them are reasonable — and had already been published iv our columns before the advent of the v eld miner" to the Lyttleton Times. We received the news by way of the Bluff — bo did the "old miner" no doubt. With a desire to strike awe and admiration into the minds of all at the dangers he or his friends had escaped, he says " numbers of people are down with fever and aguej the rains having been very heavy.'' Now as the newspapers have been unable to publish any news at all from Derby for the very simple reason that since the rush commenced there has been; no return advices, our experienced " old miner" must have evolved this intelligence from his own inner consciousness. Where he shows stu j c ndous ignorance is in the statement that " there is no use taking New Zealand timber for houses over there on account of the white ant." As this statement might do harm, unless flatly and authoritatively contradicted, we made it our business to enquire of persons here, who have had many years experience in all the Australasian colonies of the various timbers used for building purposes, and of the insects which destroy it, and we learn that New Zealand totara timber is the only timber which defies the white ant. That was proved by Dr Heotob at the Melbourne exhibition. The " old miner" added " that he was the only one out of a party of seventeen who were there last year that escaped the fever and ague." We can only Say that we doubt this very much, we believe he had it, and the otherß escaped.