WAERENGA-A-HIKA.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 22, 15 December 1883, Page 2

WAERENGA-A-HIKA.

(communicated.) Doc. 11th. The usual bu»ine»a habits of this very quiet corner have been lately started ahead a littl bit—though but a little.—Firstly by some considerable repairs by Mr. W. Cooper redraining his premises and thereby expending a good deal in making his hotel even more comfortable and salubrious than it was, and secondly by the presence of some twelve or fourteen men in the hay field—literally making hay while the sun shines. lam glad to say that the grars crops hereabouts—despite previously adverse weather, look well, and arith the promising aspect au, m usual, has accumulated M heretofore, but manageable and g(£d enough J if managed properly. I regret exceedingly to state an occurrence ■ which took place yesterday evening— them which, were not one acquainted with w ths geological peculiarities of thia this district, one would be almost led to doubt. It has been well-known that gaa has been evolved in considerable quantities at the Makaraka Hotel for some time past, and has been utilised as an illuminating agent. Probably this gas was carburetted hydrogen, which will burn well alone, but mixed in certain proportions with atmospheric air becomes highly explosive. This appears to have been the case last night, when a light must have been incautiously taken near an iron tank, filled (more or less) with the proportions of this explosive mixture. A terrible smash was the result, the iron tank being twisted and twirled about just as one sees the result of fire damp (cograte) in the Old Country. Were the damage confined to the tank, one wotf*4 think little of it—being an eventuality, but

I regret to say that a serious accident occurred, resulting in fracture of the thighbone of a young fellow pi; ent. Dr. Pollen was promptly in attendai ce, and the sufferer is proceeding very satisfactorily.