UNDERMINED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 260, 13 April 1915, Page 7

UNDERMINED.

WALK UNDER A NEW PLYMOUTH STREET. BUILDER'S STARTLING DISCOVERY. "Yes, I have been walking about under the street," said Mr. Frank Amoore to a Daily News reporter yesterday. Mr. •Amoore is engaged in erecting the new show-rooms, etc., for Mr. Newton King in Gill street, and it was to that street that he was referring. "The ground is undermined right along the frontage of the building in course of erection, by one long passage or tunnel and other shorter ones. Two run in a southerly direction right out under dill street. I walked through these tunnels and went several yards under.the street."

"How far do the tunnels extend under the street?" asked the reporter. j "I explored them for ten or twelve feet past the kerbing," Mr. Amoore replied, "and could see that they extended much farther, but went no further myself. The tunnels are all about 7ft by 7ft, being large enough to allow two people to walk through with ease. The •tunnels were discovered by my men when they commenced excavating for the foundations of the new building, and are about four or five feet below the surface.

"Are they dangerous to traffic on the street?"

"Well, it is somewhat difficult to say." "Would a heavy traction engine go] through?" "It might do, but, on the other hand, the road might last for years. I oelieve a traction engine did go through the road somewhere near here some years ago." "Some years ago?" questioned the newspaper man. "Then how long ago do you imagine those tunnels were excavated? Or arc they the work of Nature?"

"Oh, no. They were dug out some years ago, and by some of the material we have taken out I imagine that someone was excavating for clay for brickmaking. As to the date, it would be when New Plymouth was in its infancy."