MERCER QUARRY

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 7, Issue 374, 10 May 1918, Page 2

MERCER QUARRY

The difficulty of obtaining an adequate supply of durable road metal has been one of the main difficulties the Franklin County Council has had to contend with in keeping the county roads in even a passable state of repair, particularly in the western half of the district, Much of the stone available has been of a soft and crumbling nature, not suitable for the formation of roads where heavy traffic is experienced, and the constantly recurring expense of repairing has been a heavy drain on the rates.

Some two years ago the County acquired from a private company a quarry and plant at Mercer, and a representative of the Times recently made a visit of inspection to it in the company of the County Chairman and the Engineer. The property is situated about five hundred yards to the east of the Mercer railway station, with which it is connected by a tramway, and consists of a hill seventeen acres in extent and about eighty feet in height, which is, to all appearance, one mass of basaltic lava, crested with a slight deposit of light volcanic ash. The whole is evidently the result of a violent contraction of the crust of the earth in hy-grno whereby a mass of basic rock in a plastic state, but not sufficiently fluid to run in a lava flow, was squeezed above the surface. The stone is very dark in colour, breaks freely with a clean fracture, and is extremely hard. It will undoubtedly give excellent results in road-making*

At present the methods of working are of the most primitive description, and the output consequently a small one. The previous owners opened up the snmmit, instead of the base of the hill, and consequently only a small face is being worked. The spawls have to be handled twice before reaching the crusher, which absorbs time and adds to the expense. After passing through the machine the broken metal falls into a hopper, and thence into skips each containing one cubic yard, which are taken by tramway to the station and loaded into railway trucks. There is no doubt that in this quarry Franklin County has a very valuable property. The quantity of stone in sight is enormous, and appears to be all of the same uniform good quality. When developed it will be capable not only of supplying all parts of the county within reach of the railway, which with the opening up of the Waiuku line will mean nearly every riding, but of providing road material for other local bodies not fortunate enough to posses deposits of good stone. Much, however, will have to be done in the way of development. The tramway should be laid in standard gauge to permit the metil being run direct

into railway trucks. The hopper is only a few feet above the level of the railway, and a horse couM take out two or three empty trucks at a time. When loaded they would run back to the station siding by gravity, M the present tramway trucks do. If the hill is attacked at the base not only will a large face be workable instead of a small one, but the second handling of the spawl6 will be done away with. It will be necessary to expend some little capital to effect these improvements, but the return will be certain in the shape of largely decreased cost of road metal, to say nothing of what may be expected to accrue from sales to other local bodies. We are in hopes of seeing the matter taken in hand at the earliest possible date,