DISCOVERY OF COAL AND FREESTONE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 4, 2 April 1842, Page 15

DISCOVERY OF COAL AND FREESTONE.

The workmen occupied in making the road round the beach have come upon a small vein of coal, and also a block of ' freestone, in that part of the hill a few hundred yards on the town side of the Custom-house. Many hands have been busy on the coal, trying to be among the first to make a fire of coal found in the very precincts of our town. It is impossible to say at present whether or not this discovery is the envoy to that of larger veins or beds in the immediate neighbourhood. At all events, it is satisfactory. " Seeing is believing;" and, if you have a pick-axe, a pair of hands, and curiosity or " go " enough in,you, you may just dig enough to convince yourself, at all events, that there is some coal in New Zealand. We understand that there is every reason to believe that the freestone will be found to be in considerable quantity round this spot. In that case, the value of these town acres on the hill will be much increased. They are already valuable, from their position ; this discovery will make them still more so. j Since the above was written, Mr. Tuckett J has returned in the Rory O'More from his excursion to Massacre Bay. It is too late this week to enter into particulars,- were we in a situation to do so. We hope, however, that next week Mr. Tuckett will kindly enable us to lay before our readers a detailed account of his trip. Thus far we can say*— "*tb?at Mr. Tuckett visited five or six native settlements in Massacre Bay ; that he found coal on the banks of the River Motupipi, near Tata, between high and low watermark ; that it is of the very finest description, and is found in large quantities. Mr. Tuckett proceeded across to Wanganui. He found coal also on the central ridge running between Massacre Bay on one side and Wanganui on the other. From Wanganui it is well known that the Jewess took a cargo of coal to Port Nicholson, about two years since; Magnesian limestone- is also to be procured, to an unlimited extent, from the same neighbourhopd. The Rory O'More is full freighted with this limestone, and has brought also a couple* of boat-loads of the coal as a specimen.

We give, in another column, some.extracts from a paper newly published in London, entitled the Emigration Gazette. The important subject of emigration, and colonization for the very purpose of affording a field for that emigration, is daily finding new advocates. The absolute necessity fdr setting on foot a plan of emigration on a scale of magnitude until recently wholly undreamt of is becoming so evident,

so pressing, that it is impossible for those to whom is committed the care of the wellbeing of the British empire much longer to refrain from entering upon some such scheme with an energy and decision which shall be worthy of the great end in view. In this, as in other matters, the great body of the people, with whom lies the practical intelligence which it is of such moment to bring to bear upon all great national questions, are preceding their legislators in their consciousness of its overwhelming importance, its pressing necessity, its unquestionable practicability. This is as it should be. No measure so extensive in its operations can have its proper effect, unless it carry with it the conviction of those whom it chiefly concerns. Consciousness of the want, urgency in its expression, are .essential to the appreciation, nay, to the actual value of a concession. These we have already ; they are daily increasing ; nor are wanting the master-minds to give form and force to, while they suggest the mode of satisfying, the demand. In dwelling upon the inducements to Settling upon the spot which we have ourselves selected, and with which our future fortunes are to a certain extent bound up, we may be open to the suspicion of self-interested advocacy, however conscientiously, we might fulfil our duties ; but we are not now speaking of New Zealand, or of Nelson, but of Great Britain — of. the home which we have left but not forgotten — of the fellow countrymen whose hopes, whose fortunes still interest us, whatever the field they may select to carry them out ; and to all we say it, who would not, from a weak aversion to leave the land of their birth, eat out their hearts as members of the daily-increasing " uneasy class," Emigrate — Emigrate.