AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 570, 18 January 1851, Page 3

AUCKLAND.

[From the Southern Cross, December 24.] Matakana Coal. Some months since, when a public meeting was convened at the Exchange Hotel, and when a subscription had been entered into to raise a quantity of Waikato coal, at the termination of that meeting, but previous to the separation of the company, Mr. Greenwood of Queen-street, laid a specimen of Matakana coal before the gentlemen assembled. The sample then exhibited was a very indifferent one—it was an indication of the existence of coal, rather than a specimen of the coal itself. Mr. Greenwood has since brought to Auckland several much more satisfactory specimens of coal, (or the evidences of its existence), from the same spot ; these may be seen at his premises in Queen-street, where we trust those more competent than ourselves will look in and pronounce an opinion. One of the primary indications is extremely similar to that of the Slopen Main (errot'.a/)v:olrr D f . .-4 A — x. —- 1 "XT - ——. I'M . , a wav mujui j cvai ui > ail .L/ICmen’s Land ; and as that coal now fetches an equal price with the Newcastle coal of New [South Wales, it ought to be a matter of the most lively interest to the public of Auckland to ascertain the quality of the coal at Matakana, especially at a time when supplies from Newcastle are in such urgent demand for the rapidly increasing steam navigation of California and the shores of the Pacific. The samples which Mr. Greenwood has collected, are of different qualities, and, as Matakana is in the very centre of the Auckland waters, surely the determination of the convertibility of a mineral so invaluable should be a matter much too important to be neglected or delayed.