NELSON.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume I, Issue 16, 25 January 1845, Page 4

NELSON.

The West Coast. — The schooner Ihree Brothers, which left Nelson a few weeks since for a place on the West Coast of this island, known by the name of the Black Reef, on a sealing trip, returned here on Monday last, with 140 seals and sixty gallons of seal oil. The master of the vessel, Mr. G. Thorns, of Kapiti, states that near the Black Reef, which is the spot marked on the charts as the " Three Steeples," a little south of Cape Foulwind, there is a large river a mile wide. It has a bar at the entrance, on which he took soundings, and found sixteen feet at high water. The river appeared to be navigable for a considerable distance. Mr Thorns anchored his vessel in five fathoms, and pulled up four or five miles in his boat. He describes the valley through which the river runs to be twenty miles wide, finely wooded, with some open land. The only trace of a human being he saw on shore, was the footprints of a Maori, and a piece of wood, on which had been written, with charcoal, instructions to another Maori to follow the writer to Wanganui. Mr. Thorns also states that in running down the coast, he saw the mouth of another considerable river, about thirty miles north of the Black Reef. It is much to be regretted that so little is known of this Island. Mr. Tuckett and his party have recently furnished some valuable information respecting the East Coast, but the West Coast and the southern end of the island, very little is known. We have been assured that from a little north of Milford Haven, all the up to Cape Foulwind, the high mountain range receeds from the sea, leaving a fine level country, thirty miles wide. The few Maories who are acquainted with the West Coast say that from the navigable part of one of the rivers near Cape Foulwind, they can walk acros the island te Banks' Peninsula in three days. Whaling has never been tried on the West Coast. Mr. Thorns states that in no part of New Zealand are fish so plentiful. A whaling station, on that coast would draw their supplies from this port, we hope to see the experiment tried next season, and should the result be fortunate, the advantage to Nelson would be incalculable. — Nelson Examiner.