THE WEST COAST RAILWAY.

Kumara Times, Issue 1329, 4 January 1881, Page 2

THE WEST COAST RAILWAY.

The two gentlemen who were engaged by the Christchurch patriots to survey the various routes between Christchurch and the West Coast, have reported, and in doing so have even exceeded their commission. They have not only found a pass at a ridiculously slight elevation, but have also discovered an abundance of splendid coal in the interior. There are some who doubt, however, and these the Lyttelton Times abuses :—" As proof of the obstinacy of the superficially informed (says our contemporary), we may mention that, in some quasi-scientific quarters, the announcement of the discovery of the practicable pass coming into the Cannibal Gorge from the east by a northerly sweep, has already been greeted with anathemas. One writer, supposed to be well informed, has gone so far as to allege that the Ada Pass is nothing

more than a mountain of 9000 feet known to be initiated-. For his infoimation and that of nthtt-s of his calibre, we may say that we have authority for stating that the Ada Pass is not more than 2500 feet above the sea level. In length, we learn that it is 20 miles, not forty as the excited news-purveyors on the West Coasts informed the Cdlony» Lastly, we are informed that it is so placed as to be Within reach of ail easy system of gradients, of a maximum steepness of one in fifty. This id the pass lately discovered by private enterprise) for railway purposes. As we have already observed) it reaches the Cannibal Gorge from the North, Those passes which the Government engineers have fonnd and reported upon, all reach the Cannibal Gorge from the Sjuth, and strange to say, they are all nearly impracticable for railway \n\tposea. Stranger still, though the Ada pass was known thoroughly to the dwellers in the interior, whose hospitality was enjoyed by the Government engineers, these gentlemen have never" managed to hear of its existence."