THE COAL MINES OE NEW ZEALAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1450, 9 October 1872, Page 2

THE COAL MINES OE NEW ZEALAND.

(From the Evening Post.) The coal mines of the country, though attracting considerable interest in certain quarters, are not calling forth the energy ami capital which they would appear to deserve. By the last mail from England we learned that the question of a coal supply for Great Britain was again seriously attract ins the attent ion of scientific and practical men. The chance of a coal famine was being discusser!, while the relative proportion of supply and demand had caused higher quotations It is impossible to shut our ej.es to the iact that, sooner or later, perhaps much earlier than i? generally anticipated, the manufacturers in the home country may have to look for their supplies of coal outside Great Britain The result of this, and its benefit to New Zealand it is difficult to over estimate. Iron and coal have been said to have caused England's greatness, and if such is the the future before this colony is indeed a brilliant one if its resources are developed, and a tntde in them established

with the mother country. . It is, therefore, peculiarly interesting to. note the efforts' made in the direction, of the development of our coal mines. A paper on this subjecl, recently laid ou the table of both branches of the Legislature, and compiled by Dr. Hector, is most instructive. Reports, on the various coal fields are given, with lithographed sections, showing, the workings at several niinesv and a table giving analyses of the diffeient coalseams in the colony is appended. Dr Hector states that he has excluded from this table all analyses of coal not of. practical importance, and that. '** where several analyses have been made of coals from the same district or locality they are arranged according to their relative. value, obtained by calculating their? evaporative power, or the number of pounds of. boiling water,, which should be evaporated by lib of each kind of coal." From the table we learn that in the Province of Auckland nineseams of coal in various localities havebeen discovered, varying from six to, eighteen feet in thickness ; in Wellington, one, mentioned as " a thick seam,;"• in Nelson, twelve seams, also varying from six to eighteen feet in thickness;in Canterbury, coal ha& been found in the Malvern Hill district and at Amiiri. Respecting the former there are stated to be " extensive, but detached, areas of brown coal, which in many cases; have been altered to a valuable steam coal by the influence of igueous lock", and are distinguished as glance coals; seams 2 feet to 8 feet thick,, in micaceous and argillaceous shales Mines have been opened in blown coal; ou the Hawkins River, and in the glance coal on the Selvvyn River, and the Kowhai River; woiked irreguiaily since 1862. The composition of theglance coal varies, according to proximity of the igueous rock which has affected it; seams of unaltered, brown coal occurring 25 feet under dolerite rocks." lu Westland coal is. found in two districts, in Otago in five, and in Southland in nine. We thus, learn that in forty diffeient places, scattered over the colony, from far north fa the extreme south, coal lias been found,, and from this fact, we may fairly draw the inference that vast have stillto be discovered. The wealth which the colon v possesses in this mineral can hardly be calculated, and when we remind our readers of the capital which the working of the mines will inevitablyattract, the population it will draw to. the colony, the trade in coal which, must follow, and the general increase to the business of the colony which it must cause, they will be able lo gain a faint idea of the importance to be at-. tached to the practical development of the coal resources of the colony.