BROCKLEY COAL.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2185, 25 February 1881, Page 3

BROCKLEY COAL.

A great deal has been laid and written daring the past twelve months about our looal industrial, and there is little doubt that it will be conceded on all sides that one of the moat important factors in_ the prosperity of any community is the existence of coal in quantities that will pay for working, and of quality that will oommend itself to consumers. That suoh coal measures exist in Canterbury has been proved beyond doubt, and the coal to which we particularly refer teems to comply with all these requirements. Thanks to the energy of the late Mr M. B. Hart, Messrs W. Wilson, E. Ford, and many others, the vast mineral wealth of the district in which Brookley is situated has been so persistently brought under public notice, that it was impossible to ignore its olaims, and, although it is no figure of speech to say that the hidden treasures of that looality haye as yet been hardly " soratohed," still enough has been done to confer a vast amount of benefit upon Canterbury, and give a good earnest of what will bo the result when the hidden riches it contains tire thoroughly developed. The Brookley coal mine (Whiteoliff's) has, during the past few months, passed into the possession of Messrs McClatohie and Mcintosh, of Manchester street, and some idea of _ the favor in whioh the coal is held may be gained from the faot that the output has inoreased from 20 tons a month to 200 tons for a sorresponding period, and in order to keep pace with the demand the work of hewing the coal ia carried on incessantly night and day by means of relays of miners. The excellent qualities that pertain to the well-known Newcastle ooal are claimed for the Brockley nuggets, and if it ia equally valuable, eilher for consumption in the drawing-room, kitchen or steam furnace (and that it is so seems borne out by testimonials shown by the proprietors, regarding the bona fides of whioh there can be no doubt), then it may be safely predicted that it will win its way to public favor, and become an article of almost universal consumption in Canterbury.