Untitled

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 967, 6 August 1881, Page 2

Cognate to the foregoing is that of what we may term No. 4 enterprise, namely the formation of the “ Cook County Prospecting Association,” a full report of which appears in another column in this issue. The more immediate object is to send a prospecting party in search for coal, samples of which, in their pristine state, have engaged the thoughtful attention of our local geologists for some years. But the prospectors will not confine their labors to search for coal alone; although, primarily, that is the mineral they set out most confident in finding, as it is, perhaps, the only one likely to be found. Mr. Allan, the head of the prospecting party, is reputed to be a mau of no mean knowledge of his work, and has had considerable experience in the work he has cut out for himself ; and it is only due to him to say that he originated the present movement, and has shown his interest in the undertaking by taking several shares in the Association. The Association is now a concrete body, consisting of 50 subscribers who have pledged themselves to provide £lOO to equip the party for a tour of some three or four months. A committee of management has been formed, and everything transacted in that business-like way, which will give confidence in the undertaking, and satisfaction to the shareholders, even in the event of failure, that the fault of non-success will not lie at their doors. Herein may be discerned another evidence of that spirit of enterprise which will go far to redeem the district from the many other sins laid to its charge. That there are many good indications of coal, such as shale and lignite, on the East Coast, there is no denying, but, of course, it will depend, almost entirely, on the exact geographical position of any possible coal field, as to whether it would pay to work it. From all that has reached us from time to time, we are not so over sanguine of such success, as would warrant any large amount of jubilation. For it must not be overlooked that the working of a field at any great distance from a shipping access, would hardly prove a paying speculation, as against

the coal companies now in existence in the Colony. Therefore it may be an exposition of wisdom for the prospectors to keep this fact steadily in view, and, first of all, explore that part of the coast likely to combine the advantages most conducive to profit, as well as success. Like all the enterprises which have preceded this one, all is left for us to do now is to labor and to wait ; and whatever the outcome may be, the settlers will have, at least, the satisfaction of having done their duty.