NGAKAWHAU COALMINE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIIII, Issue 34, 7 February 1873, Page 4

NGAKAWHAU COALMINE.

A correspondent of the Westport Times has furnished that journal with on interesting account .of a visit to this mine. After describing the trip from Westport to the river mouth, he goes on to say : — From the .south bank of the river a high shingle bank just now extends, running right across the mouth of the river, and turning the current abruptly to the northward, causing it to trickle gently over the shingle at a depth of not more I than two feet. The shingle back across the usual entrance is literally the bar to present safe navigation, but upon the first fresh, the river following its accustomed course, will make a breach right through, clearing a straight run out with probably ten or twelve feet of water at high tide. At least such dbs been the experience heretofore after every ordinary flood, and the present shingle bank, evidently formed by drift from the southward, presents no indications of more than ordinary stability. * * * * The coal works are situated on the right hand bank of the river upon the face of an abrupt acclivity covered with timber. A wharf or staging has been erected at the pit mouth and supporting a framework of timber erected thereon, forming a paddock capable of holding about two hundred tons of loose coals, which are conveyed therefrom to the holds of vessels moored in the stream below, by a wooden shoot. Above this paddock a line of rails has been laid running from the main drive in the mine, and along which trucks are impelled, laden with the coals. Entering the mine the visitor is at once struck with the extent of the coal seam. Unlike ■the ordinary contracted 'main drive' in miDiog claim?, be finds a broad and lofty entrance cutting immediately into the coal measure, and expanding in height and width as the interior of the miue is reached. At about two hundred feet from the mouth of the drive, the coal has been cut through to a width of twelve feet by a height of eighteen feet, and neither the lateral nor vertical limits of the seam have yet been reached. The coal here loses the sooty appearance it bears at the entrance to the drive, and is bright and compact, and the seam, which at the entrance of the mine dips at an angle of about forty degrees, is here nearly horizontal. A climb up a somewhat impracticable ladder lands the visitor upon the second level, where work has only recently been commenced, but which will ultimately penetrate the seam of coal at an angle with the main drive. Leaving the mine and following a narrow path along the steep bank for a few hundred feet, Mioe Creek is reached, wherein the recent discoveries of other coal seams have been made. The stream runs, or rather tumbles, through a narrow rock-bound ravine strewn with masses of granite, fallen fragments from the high beetling cliffs on either side. The seams of coal discovered up this creek give unnoubted proofs of the wide extent of the Ngakawhau coal measures, but some engineering difficulties must be overcome to render them readily accessible. Presuming that the visitor has profitably spent some two hours or more in and around the mine while the tide has been rising, he will find on again pulling down stream that the scene has changed materially. The shingle bank is no longer in sight, the river has expanded into a wide noble stream, the boulder banks are hidden, and experimental sounding gives a depth and width of channel sufficient for any coasting craft in New Zealand waters. The sole difficulty in navigation is at the entrance of the river, and here it is suggested some engineering works of no great magnitude would Buffice to keep the channel clear at all times. The banks of the river abound in granite deposits practically inexhaustible, and the removal of the boulder bank before referred to would yield an abundance of material wherewith retaining walls might be built faced with granite blocks on either side of the stream, leading out upon the beach to low water mark, and between which the ordinary flow of the river might suffice to keep at all times a clear practicable channel, the direct force of the stream being increased by the removal of the boulder bank, which now presents the only obstacle to the navigation to the stream up as far as the coal mine. The cost of such work has been variously estimated at from ten to fifteen thousand pounds, and the time to be necessarily occupied in bringing it to completion would extend over at least twelve months. Its utility would be unquestionable, its permanency would depend entirely upon the engineering skill displayed in its construction. The relative merits of special works at the Ngakawb.au, to develop, a local coal trade ,ther6, or the construction of a railway to bring such trade to Westport is a subject that must soon command the attention of the General' Government.

The first . crushing of the Wealth of Nations claim, Inangahua, occupied cix days. 100 tons were put through the machine, giving 2700ZS of amalgam, which yielded 92ozs retorted gold. The second crushing occupied ten days, and 200 tons of quartz were put through, yielding 525 ozs of amalgam, which is expected to yield at least 18Oozs of retorted gold. As soon as the race now in progress is completed, the battery will be kept constantly going, when the returns of the company will no doubt be proportionately. ..increased. — G.R. Argus. A Connecticut lady who couldn't persuade her husband to get her a patent clotbes-dryer, took the pole away from her old fashioned line, and, crouching down by the fence, screamed " Murder ! " In an instant her startled lord came flying out of the house, waß caught across the throat by the clothes line, and before he could recover himself, it had nearly sawed his head off. The next rooming a sombrelooking man, with hie neck all bandaged up, was Been putting up a patent clothesdryer in the same identical yard. A Glass of Brandt. — "Can't hurt anybody !" Why I know a person — yonder he is now — high on 'change, a specimen of manly beauty, a portly sixfooter. He has the bearing of a prince ; he is one of our merchant princes. His face wears the hue of health, and now, at the age of 50 odd, he has the quick elastic step of our young men of twentyfive, and none more full of wit and mirth than he, and I know he never dines without brandy-and-water, and never goes to bed without an oyster supper, and plenty of champagne ; and more than that, he was never known to be drunk. So here is a living exemplar and disproof of the temperance twaddle about the dangerous nature of an occasional glass, and the destructive effect of a temperate use of liquors." Now it so happened that this specimen of safe brandy-drinking was a relation of ours. Ha died in a year with chronic diarrhoea, a common end of those who are never drunk or never out of liquor. He left his widow a splendid mansion ap-town and a clear five thousand a year, besides a large fortune to each of 1 his children ; for he has ships on every sea, and credit at every counter, but which he never had chosen to use. For months before he died — he was a year dying — he could eat nothing without distress, and at death the whole alimentary canal was a mass of disease ; in the midst of his millions he died of inanition. This is not the half, reader. He had been a steady drinker, a daily drinker, for twenty-eight years. He left a legacy to his children, which he did not mention. Scrofula had been eating up one daughter for the last fifteen years; another is in the madhouse ; the third and fourth were of unearthly beauty. There was a kind of grandeur in that beauty, but they blighted and faded, into heaven we trust, in their sweetest teens. Another is tottering on the verge of the grave, and only one of them is ieft with all the senses, and each of them is weak as water. — Hall's Journal of Health. A Correspondent signing himself " WambH," writes as follows to the Otago Daily Times : — I once knew a man of a very economical turn of mind. He would not allow a single thing to be wasted if he could help it. Occasionally it would happen that somebody in the house got ill, and the doctor had to be sent for. Then, of course, there would be physic — black draughts, pills, and heaven knows what. But if the patient got well before all the medicine was consumed, my friend would swallow it himself — for he was of a very thrifty disposition, and hated to see anything wasted. The medicine was good — had been bought and paid for — and such extravagance as not using it was out of the question. I think it is on similar principles that we send our letters by the San Francisco route. We have got it (or rather it has got us); we shall have to pay for if, and though our letters are delayed, still if we did'nt send that way^ we should be paying £40,000 a year for nothing.