BETWEEN SHORTLAND AND TAUEANGA.

15

E.—No. 6,

No. 56. Mr. Floyd to Mr. C. Lemon. Ga., 14th August, 1871. The poles reported on by Mr. Jordan are thirty-seven that I rejected on Tauranga AVharf. Mr. Jordan will report further, after visit to Omokoroa on Thursday. Going Kati Kati to-day ; back to-morrow or AVednesday. W. H. Floyd, C. Lemon, Esq. Electrician.

No. 57. Mr. Jordan to Mr. C. Lemon. Ga., 18th August, 1871. 1 accompanied Mr. Floyd, on 17th instant, to Omokoroa to examine some telegraph poles. The proportion of sap in the poles shown me is as follows: —One-twelfth sap, 6 poles ; one-tenth, 4 poles ; oneeighth,4 poles ; one-seventh,4 poles; one-sixth, 3 poles; one-fifth, 2 poles ; one-fourth,4 poles j one-third, 2 poles. Total, 29 poles examined carefully and separately. Of these poles 14 had bark on them; on 23 the sap extended across one face, and on six there was one corner of sap. I then examined 120 more, with the object of ascertaining if there were any poles free of sap. I only succeeded in finding two, the balance averaging the same as those detailed above. R. E. Jordan.

No. 58. Mr. Floyd to Mr. C. Lemon. Tauranga, 18th September, 1871. Referring to Mr. Jordan's report, the two poles found free of sap were, one badly shaken, and one bearing my accepted mark, but stacked with rejected poles by McKenzie's men. Mr. Jordan has now seen nearly all the poles I have rejected; the remaining few are in places difficult of access, or have been lost from rafts during collection of rejected poles to Omokoroa, but there are not more than thirty altogether that he has not reported on. W. H. Floyd, Electrician.

No. 59. Mr. Floyd to Mr. C. Lemon. (Telegram.) Tauranga, 24th August, 1871. McKenzie has not answered my note of 10th instant, asking whether he intended to proceed with line, nor has he yet come himself. He has sent a note to the man who was erecting poles for him which will probably result in the almost immediate erection of about fifty more poles ; but Thorpe, who has been putting poles on line, declines to do any more work until he has had an explanation with McKenzie. whose cheque given last time he was here has been returned dishonored. In a letter dated 14th instant, McKenzie told a business friend of his living here that he would be at Tauranga in a week. Ten days have passed and he has not been here. Respectfully submit that, in view of the facts that the extended time for the completion of McKenzie's contract has been exceeded by more than six weeks, that no poles have been erected for more than nine weeks, that McKenzie has not been near the work for more than five weeks, the Government would be justified in cancelling the contract, and supplying poles from Wellington to finish the line. I require one hundred and eighty more poles. At McKenzie's rate of progress I shall not get them in less than three months' time. For iv four months I have only passed three hundred and thirty-four, and of that number eighty-six were stacked at Tauranga before I arrived here. Those rejected yesterday and to-day were very bad. They were nearly all undersized and badly cut, and I see no hope that McKenzie will offer better ones. The captain of the cutter by which they came says he refused forty-three at the loading-place as manifestly unfit to bear inspection, else his cargo would have been one hundred and sixty poles instead of one hundred and seventeen. Fifty of this cargo came from Auckland, and probably they supplied those I have passed, for I am told McKenzie brought several influential people to look at fifty in Auckland as a sample of the poles I was rejecting. W. H. Floyd, C. Lemon, Esq., Wellington. Electrician.

No. 60. Mr. Floyd to Mr. C. Lemon. (Telegram.) Tauranga, 24th August, 1871. Yesterday and to-day, I examined 101 poles at Kati Kati. Accepted forty-five, rejected fifty-six. There were sixteen more brought by the cutter, but they were in deep water, and could not be recovered this morning. Of the fifty-six rejected, fifty-three for sap, one for rot, and two broken. Of those rejected for sap, fourteen had bark on. W. H. Floyd, C. Lemon, Esq., Electrician.