THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1873.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1405, 31 January 1873, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus. PUBLISHED DAILY. FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1873.

The circumstance of several of our Grey Valley miners having lately left the district for other Colonies, under the inducements presented to them by published and private accounts [of discoveries of tin and copper, in the mining of which they had had experience at Home, is a circumstance worthy of attention on the part of those who are, by their official position, the custodians of four mineral resources. It^ is surely a question worthy of their consideration, whether there are not in this country deposits of the same minerals, and whether their development might not be promoted by offers of rewards for discovery, similar to those which have, in several notable instances, prompted prospectors to pursue and divulge the discovery of gold. By nearly every Provincial Government in ihe country, and by some of them with success, rewards for the discovery of a payable gold field have from time to time been promised. Similar inducements, however, have not been held out to those who might be disposed to turn their attention to such minerals as tin, copper, or iron, though the development of such mineral deposits might have as important a bearing upon the prosperity of the Colony as the discovery of gold itself. There seems to be no special reason for this restriction of rewards, except the force of habit, and it is to be hoped that, at the next sittings of those Provincial Councils which have money to spare, or in whose Provinces there is a prospect of such minerals being discovered, some effort will be made to put an end to that restriction. The proposition is one which is not solely suggested to us by the fact of a few Cornish miners quitting our shores, but partly by a perusal of two reports which we have recently received on the subject of promoting Provincial and Colonial Industries — two reports very valuable as a whole, but remarkable in the one particular that they do not give to the production of these minerals the prominence which their value deserves. One of these reports is that of the Commissioners appointed by the Ne'son Council "to inquire into the best means of furthering the industrial interests of the Province." The report itself, if we remember rightly, has already been published in the Nelson papers, but in the now printbd record of the " Votes and Proceedings " of the Council, there is attached to the general remarks of the Commissioners some memoranda, more or less interesting, on each item of inquiry. It is the peculiarity of even these memoranda, or such of them as relate to minerals and mining, that«no mention i 3 made of the minerals we have mentioned, and that the inquiries of the Commissioners seem to have been limited to coal, stone, lime, and clay. The Commissioners were probably themselves men of the Stone Period, and left it to their successors to represent the metal ages, which we hope they will do. They do make one exception, and that is hematite, the production and conversion of which anyone who visits Nelson, or who travels by Messrs N. Edvards and

Co.'s steamers, will discover to be already v established industries, though as yet only I on a small scale. The second report of 1 the two to which we have referred is the a report of the "Joint Committee of the y House of Assembly on Colonial Indus- fc tries." That Committee, it is true, re- v port upon one of the minerals we have t mentioned — iron ; and this is their report f and recommendation : — " Your Committee s have received sufficient evidence to con- •y vince them that payable iron stone and ore exist in various parts of the Colony ; and in view of the great increase of price s of manufactured iron in Europe, and the t prospect of high prices, together with a \ constantly increasing demand continuing, 1 they consider that they are fully justified < in recommending that a bonus be offered ' of JSOOO on the production of 1000 tons of pig iron of marketable quality, in < quantities of not less than 100 tons, and J under such regulations as may appear necessary to the Government to insure ! the permanent establishment of the industry." While the Committse say nothing on other subjects similar, they \ were, however, furnished with some ex- , ceedingly valuable statements and sug- 1 gestions by Mr Tatton, chemist, of 1 Nelson, and we notice that his i suggestions run very much in the ! same direction as those with which I we opened this article, with this differ- ' ence that he proposes suitable subsidies ' for the practical working of minerals, say- i ing nothing as to rewards to prospectors. Briefly, his idea is that Government should offer subsidies in the usual way (as lately with glass, paper, and woollen manufactures), towards the working of silver, copper, iron, chrome, lead, zinc, antimony, or their chemical compounds, and also towards the utilization of animal refuse, such as horns, hoofs, and dried blood, all of which can be profitabl y used in working the above, to produce colors, dyeing materials, &c. j such subsidy to bear a certain proportion to the export value of the manufactured articles and extending over five or six years. To the testing of many of these mineral ores Mr Tatton had devoted much time and enthusiastic attention, and as an index to what he has already ascertained, as well as a guide to the localities in which discoveries are most likely to be made in the Province of Nelson, we quote from his statement the following items of information regarding each mineral mentioned : — Copper— Copper is found in various forms : to enumerate their precise number, or the many localities it is reported to be taken from, would occupy too much time and space. Those I can substantiate show a large extent of country in which we may meet with extensive lodes in some future period. Tho samples prepared are from ores extending over 200 miles of country. The ores met with are generally of good quality, realising from 20 to 75 per cent, of copper, and could readily be worked, having advantages at our command. Chrome. — Our supply of chrome is inexhaustible. In taking the south of our Pro-, vince, we find the jade, so highly prized by the Maoris as greenstone, stained with the oxide of chromium ; also, the chromic iron sand in the different eddies between Collingwood and Riwaka. We find the ore at Oroixelle's, Dun Mountain, and. Aniseed Valley ; at the latter place, large quantities of disintegrated, showing the presence of chromium over an extent of more than 200 miles. Iron, — We have abundance of iron, in various forms, over a vast extent of our Province. I will take hrematite as my first example. It exists in large quantities at the Croixelle's, Dun Mountain, and Collingwood, suitable for smelting or pigment. The latter, great praise is due to the energies of a small Company, which has recently commenced its manufacture, under the name of "The Imperial Haematite Company, Nelson." The ore is raised in Collingwood, and conveyed to Nelson, where it is manufactured into pigments. Its properties are becoming so well kuown as an anti-corrosive coating for iron, and as a protective groundwork for wood, that the commercial demands for it must necessarily increase. The bisulphides of iron, so widely diffused, with alum from the neighborhood of Port Hardy, could be worked for the double salt, protosulphate of iron, and the sulphate of alumina of commerce. The haimatitic iron is tbe most practical to work ; for general purposes, equal to Swedish iron, and well suited for railway purposes. If a superior quality be required for fine work, the hsematite, with a percentage of iron sand, could be worked. The latter we have in Collingwood and elsewhere ; the former we have extending from the coal measure, through the Para Para, a distance of several miles. We have it at the the Croixelles, Dun Mountain, Aniseed "Valley, and along the line to the Western Coast. Lead. — Is found about 30 miles north of the Buller, Wangapeka, Collingwood, &c, showing more than 200 miles of country where it presents itself. At Collingwood, a great surface has been laid bare by means of shafts and drives, thus proving a most valuable property, not only containing lead, but silver, zinc, cadmium, and gold. Antimony ore can be obtained at Queen Charlotte's Sound in large quantities. It is used in type, Britannia metal, bearings of machinery, and for a variety of purposes. Graphite, or plumbago, one of the forms of carbon associated with iron, is found in the neighborhood of Karamea, Pakawa, and Collingwood. Numerous other minerals are mentioned by the same experimenter, although his experiments have been principally confined to samples brought to him within a limited radius of the city in which he resides. If thorough prospecting of the West Coast were encouraged, he would, no doubt, have many additional contributions to his laboratory — a laboratory which should itself be subsidised — and the probability i 3 that, in course of very few years our local industries would be vastly extended. It is an important consideration that, as stated in the conclusion of Mr Tatteu's report, "in developing our resources we require nothing to import. Besides the material, we have fuel, and the compost for our furnaces, &c. The whole proceeds would be retained in profit and employing labor. Laborers are consumers ; and this would bring a tide of immigrants who would settle down amongst us, without expense to the country. Such industries would insure not only good opportunities for the safe investment of capital, but also what is, perhaps, even more important : ' openings for the employment of the rising ■ generation." '.