WESTPORT AND GREYMOUTH TELEGRAPH.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 558, 23 September 1869, Page 3

WESTPORT AND GREYMOUTH TELEGRAPH.

The annual report of the Telegraph Department contains a statement of the receipts and expenditure of the Greymouth and Westport line from its opening in September 1868, to June 30th. The actual cash receipts alone at the three new stations were —at Westport £716 18s ; at Charleston £446 7s 3d; at Brighton £l6l 13s 2d. This is exclusive of messages received from Greymouth or other stations, and of the bulk of press telegrams. The total was £1327 Is 4d, showing a balance of £94 3s Id over expenditure, which includes interest on £7OOO for ten months, maintenance of the line, contingencies, and what are, comparatively, rather contemptible salaries. As a general description of the line, and the difficulties which its construction presented, may not be uninteresting, we add an extract from the report of Mr Aitken, to whom the superintendence of this difficult work was intrusted : " The cost of erection is very large, but the sinking throughout was much worse than I ever anticipated. A large proportion of the holes were in rock or cement, and the weather during the progress of the work was, for three-fourths of the time, of the worst description for such work. The whole of the poles are down at least five feet, and the large sized and angled ones are down from six to ten feet. On portions of the line, from fifteen to twenty-four miles from Greymouth, the poles are set up in very bad swamps, in which holes could not be sunk, and which could

not be avoided except by erecting tbe line much too close to tbe sea to be safe. Tbe surface of the swamps was not so bad, but when broken, poles dropped down by their own weight from five to seven feet, at that depth reaching a solid bottom. All the poles in those swamps have been rendered thoroughly stable by driving pointed stakes from seven to ten feet in length into the solid bottom closely around the pole, and making good the surface with shingle carried for that purpose. The poles are full-sized, and of good sound timber —white pine and birch, and other woods, the durability of which was doubtful, having been carefully excluded. " The clearing, done by contract, cost £2O 14s lid. per mile, and was from ten to thirty-three feet wide, and I found it necessary to make a further expenditure of £8 7s 7d. per mile to give the line that degree of safety and stability which I considered indispensable. All trees of a doubtful character have been taken down, and the clearing through the heavy timber, as the line now stands, varies from three-fourths of a c'lain to two and a half chains in width, according to tbe nature of the timber through which the line passes. The contract prices for clearing and supplying the poles would have paid the contractors had the weather been good, but the weather they have had to do the work in was such that they lost considerably by it. The contractors for No. 2 section had to pay for a large proportion of the clearing £3B to £4A per mile, for which they only received £3O per mile.

" "While I have endeavoured to keep the expenditure as low as possible, I have not left anything undone (within reasonable limits) that would tend to secure and increase the stability and permanence of the line, and I feel satisfied that the experience of the future will show that any extra expenditure made by me for that purpose has not been incurred uselessly."