Messrs Oppenheimer and Co., Auckland.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1020, 7 January 1882, Page 2

Messrs Oppenheimer and Co., Auckland.

Mb C. K. Jeffs, travelled for the firm of Messrs Oppenheimer and Co., manufacturers, agents, and indenters, of Custom-house-street, Auckland, is now in Gisborne. He is staying at Allanach’s Gisborne Hotel, where he is exhibiting his samples, patterns, and catalogues of agricultural and farming implements, machinery, tools, hardware, fencing wires, &c., and is prepared to take orders for the different manufacturers in England, America, and the Continent,- which this house represents. It would be almost impossible to attempt a description of the various lines that he has with him. We shall, therefore, only touch upon a few of those which are most likely to interest our readers. The “ Pierce AVell Excavator Company’s” machinery for boring artesian wells, would fie well adapted for oil-boring regions. By this machine a 5, 6, or 8 inch hole can be bored through soil, sand, clay, drift, shingles, boulders, or the hardest rock, at from 1 foot to 5 feet per hour according to the nature of the strata to be pierced. It is a portable machine that can be drawn on an ordinary dray, by two horses, over any road. The machine can be set up by two men in a couple of hours. One man, a boy, and two horses being all the help required to work it in action; strikes 40 to 60 blows per minute, and drills a 6-inch hole any depth up to 4000 feet—indeed at Spermbey, Prussia, one of these machines bored a well 4,170 feet deep. At Passey, in France, a well was bored 2000 feet, the capacity of gallons of water per day amounting to 5,660,000; Since 1855, 76 flowing wells have been sunk in the desert of Sahara, Africa, yielding over 13,000,000 gallons of water daily ■ almost wherever you may pierce, water can be obtained, no matter at what depth. The varieties of barbed fencing wires, Mr Jeffs has shown us, is very great, and are by six different makers, varying in price from £42 10 to £55 per ton, delivered at Auckland. The wire most in demand, Mr Jeffs informs us, is that known as the “ American Fence Barbed Wire.” For its great strength and the closeness of the saw-toothed barbs it is impossible for a dog, pig, cat, or rabbit to crawl through it. Messrs Oppenheimer are sole agents for this wire throughout New Zealand, and indents given to them for this line alone exceeds £2OOO per month. This wire is quoted at £42 10s per ton, delivered at Auckland. Less than a year agis, barbed wire was selling in the New Zealand market at from £57 10s to £65 per ton.

The next thing which attracted our attention was a peculiarly constructed rake, suitable for lawns. It is known as “The Davis Lawn Rake,” and cleanses the lawn or field of leaves, short grass, and all such rubbish, without tearing the grass or roots. There is a great saving of time and trouble of picking leaves from the field, doing the duty of rake and broom combined. It was awarded first degree of merit at the Melbourne International Exposition against lawn and hay rakes of all other countries. The Springfield Gas Machines may yet be worthy of the consideration of our Borough Councils. The machine is very simple in its construction, of nine different sizes, having from 20 to 500 burners. A similar machine is now in use at the Star Hotel, Tauranga. Mr Bennett, the proprietor, expresses himself highly pleased with it. Whilst on the subject of illuminating mediums, we may touch upon the English Street Lamp, adapted for burning kerosene oil This lamp gives a pure white light (better than gas), burns from 18 to 20 hours. In matter of cost is 65 per cent cheaper than gas. It possesses automatic glass shutters, and cannot, so we are told, be blown out in a gale of wind. On September 20th, 1881, this lamp was tested against gas at Chesterfield, and was adopted for the public lighting of the town where gas was only 3s 9d per 1000 feet.

Amongst the agricultural implements we find “ Monroe's Improved Rotary Harrow.” This will work on the steepest hillsides or level ground, and caused considerable attraction at the Agricultural Show in Auckland, where it was awarded a special order of merit. It worked there in company with the innumerable implements exhibited by Messrs Oppenheimer. There is hardly an implement, tool, or machine used in the fine arts, industries, or manufactures that Mr Jeffs has not shown us, from a locomotive engine to a fishing line, from a Berlin Landau, worth£32o, to a wheelbarrow, at $l9 per dozen. Horsehair, feathers, eider-down, satins, rope and cordage, telephones, pianos, church and other organs, desks for offices, buggies, wagons, carts, steam valve and pistons, lubricators, wood-working machinery, American paint, coach and- harnessmakers’ hardware, self-folding rocking chairs, East Indian sauce, stoves and ranges for coal, wood or oil, and a thousand other things of equal interest but too numerous to remember or describe. Mr Jeffs assured us that he would be happy to show and explain the inventions and novelties he exhibits to anyone who will favor him with a visit. Such an opportunity may not occur again in Gisborne for some time.