The Coal-Mines of Cape Otway.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume III, Issue 127, 17 October 1846, Page 4

The Coal-Mines of Cape Otway.-

There is now to, be seen at the office of this paper, a bagful of coals from a point on the Cape Otway coast, eighteen miles from Geelong, immediately adjoining an available harbour possessing good anchorage. It is not the duty of a journalist to urge the community to enter into new and doubtful schemes, as individuals ate generally sufficiently ready to avail themselves of speculative undertakings so soon ts reasonable prospects of success Appear. It is, however, we consider, time for the capitalists and mercantile men of this district to consider whether steps should not be taken without delay, to secure some of the advantages presented by the mineral wealth, which actually obtrudes itself upon their notice, by cropping through the soil in seams of four feet thickness and several miles of length. The position of Loutit Bay, where the coal most abounds, is the most favourable on the sea coast, in respect to accessibility for vessels in or passing through the Straits. When the existence of the harbour becomes known, it will most probably become the " first place of call" for vessels passing through the Straits, from England, thereby avoiding the delay of entering the heads of Port Phillip. Nothing of course can be done by speculators until the question of mineral reservations in purchases of land be settled ; but this settlement might be accelerated by bringing more prominently into notice tke delay, uncertainty, and other evils which attend the present system, as evidenced in the case now adduced. — Geelong Advertiser, Sept. 9.

Swan River. — It must be known to some of our commercial fellow-colonists that the Dutch Government employs a national steamer for the conveyance of overland and ordinary mails and passengers from Batavia, in the island of Java, to and from Singapore. This arrangement the government yof Western Australia has resolved to attempt the rendering available to the purposes of a speedy transit between the mother-country and that colony. In furtherance of this determination, the Legislative Council has voted the expenses, and the government schooner Champion has been employed to carry a gentleman (Mr. Singleton) to Batavia, where he will endeavour to make suitable arrangements with the Dutch government, such arrangements being intended to include not only the conveyance of Perth or other Australian mails from Singapore to Batavia, the capital of Java, but to forward them to Angier Point, in that island, where it is intended to land and take on board the mails entrusted to such conveyance to and from Australia. Persons fully competent to give an opinion have pronounced upon the possibility of English overland mails addressed to the capital of Western Australia being received there in fifty days, provided the Champion, or a fast-sailing packet shall be (as intended) at Angier Point awaiting the arrival of the mails. — South Australian Register.

North Australia. —No place has yet been decided upon as the site of the capital of the new colony, except that it is not to be within the tropic, so that it must be between the mouth of the Boyne and Wide Bay. It is not probable that any details will be made public until after the arrival of the June mail: but it was decided in London, before Colonel Barney sailed, that the first shipment of convicts, or probationers, or whatever may be their proper designation, should leave England in September, and they may therefore be expected in Sydney about the end of the year. —S.M.H. The following is the official announcement of the appointment of Lieut.-Col, Barney, who ariived in the William Hyde:

Downing-strbet, May s.—The. —The Queen has been pleased to appoint George Barney, Esq., Lieutenant Colonel in the Corps of Royal Engineers, to be Lieutenant Governor of North Australia, and to administer the government of that colony, under the style and title of Superintendent thereof. —London Gazette, May 8.