A LUMP OF COAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 64, 7 July 1914, Page 7

A LUMP OF COAL.

Some weeks ago a miner at Akatea, in the Waikato, was hewing 'coal in the course of his daily occupation, but he was on a job which was out of the usual, and which was the getting of a lump of "Black Diamonds" to turn the scales at a quarter of a ton. This lump was destined to reach Stratford, hut not before it had been viewed and discussed and admired by thousands of people who lived and moved in towns many miles from the scene of its natural site. First at the Hawera and then at the Palmerston Shows, this product of the Akatea mine, the output of the Waipa Railway and Collieries, Ltd., whose line junctions with the Main Trunk at Ngaruawahia, attracted considerable attention. Few but wished that the lump was in their own coalshed at home, for use in the home ir at the factory. To-day, staged it the entrance of Masters and Son's, Broadway Store. where numerous photographs of the Company's mine, railway, and works set off the exhibit, it claims the attention of the passing resident or visitor. The coal is bright and shiny to look upon, and hard and brittle to the touch. Users of the Waipa article speak of it in glowing terms. They say it is a juiok coal, and soon produces a groat body of heat, either in the kitchen range or in the pngine-room. The demand in Taranaki has grown remarkably : a trial order of a truck of steam coal blossomed into 50 tons for the following month, and factory manners could not speak too highly of the article for their purposes ; equally satisfactory to the Company has been the opinions expressed by housewives. Tudeed, all this has been a shade embarrassing to the management, as the mine output has not been quite equal to the demand, but -he introduction of discharging facilities and the opening up of fresh 'places" in the mine promise soon :o pick up the leeway in orders. The rt-nolesale agency for Taranaki is in 'bo bands of Morsts Masters and Son, ivhile retail orders can b« »uppli»d Ist all the local coal mtrehMti.