MOKIHINUI.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1199, 4 August 1874, Page 4

MOKIHINUI.

[tVESTPOBT EVENING STAB.] Tee New Zealand Times, true to its lately announced intention of becoming a more purely colonial journal, publishes every item of interprovincial news of any importance. Of late, copious extracts from the Westport Times, having reference to the Mokihirmi reefs, have been republished and the evident good intent will doubtless be soon followed by good effects. Keferring to the district the New Zealand Times makes the following remarks, which will be perused with interest:—" Mokikinui is the peculiar name of a peculiar place on the west coast of the Province of Nelson. At the mouth of a river so named there arose a few years ago, a promising township ; but it foil, as it arose, after the fashion of Jonah's gourd. Banks, stores, and hotels, at one time numerous, disappeared almost as rapidly as they had been created, and the locality has lately been left with only a few inhabitants, who obtain subsistence as storekeepers for the few miners who have remained among the ranges, or as the suppliers of rough food and raw spirits to the few travellers by the beach. Latterly, however, the place has gained some fresh importance, through the fact of its being one of the many available, although not valuable, ports for the shipment of coal, which is so extensively found along the west coast of the Province. In connection with the enterprise of working this coalfield, a small steamer, the luo, proceeded recently from Westport to the river, and her report is satisfactory as to the state of the bar, and the shelter to be found there. She found nine feet of water on the bar at a quarter flood-tide, and under ordinary circumstances the harbor is suitable for the reception of vessels of much greater tonnage than the Ino. The trip made was apparently an experimental one, and the knowledge which was gained by it is accepted as encouraging to the shareholders in the company by which the coal mines are being worked. In the prospecting and preliminary working of these mines some money has been invested by men of enterprise resident in Wellington and elsewhere, and it is believed that their enterprise and the existing facilities for shipment will soon lead to a large exportation of coal from the Mokihinui.