CO882-(2-3) — Page 106

TRIT

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

CO.8

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882

2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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8. Turning to the sources from which a supply of coal for temporary purposes was to be kept up, he found that these had become reduced to the surface workings, known as the Gowrie Mines, and that these workings had been brought into a most unsatisfactory and precarious condition.

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9. It devolved upon the new manager then to complete the preliminary operations for proceeding with the 100-fathom shaft, to raise the water in it, to renew the sinking of the shaft from the depth where it had been left in 1867, aud then to prosecute the work until he should win the seam of coal which the shaft had been designed to win, and which was calculated to be at or about the depth of 100 fathoms-altogether a work which it was estimated would occupy two years, or thereabouts, in the prosecution.

10. He would also have to keep up in the meantime, for present use, what supply of coal he could obtain from the Gowrie Mines, or from any other available source, if any could be found.

11. To recapitulate his progress with the main work from the 29th June, 1871-the date of his arrival. On the 25th November following, having completed the preliminary operations, he commenced raising the water in the shaft, repairing the inner works as he proceeded.

By the 1st January, 1872, the shaft was clear of water. On the 5th January the sinking through the solid was renewed, and by the 18th June the shaft had been suok from the 35-fathom depth to one of 59 fathoms. At this point the water so gained upon him that the winding engine proved insufficient to cope with it, and it became necessary to have recourse to a pumping engine. On the 17th September I reported that the pumping engine had been erected, but that the bell cranks which belonged to the machinery being found unsuitable, Mr. Gray had been obliged to write to his Directors for new cranks.

12. I now beg to report the proceedings subsequent to that date :-

In order not to lose the time that must elapse before the new cranks could be received, the manager set to work to construct temporary cranks. He succeeded in doing this, and fortunately so, because up to this date the cranks expected from Scotland had not been received.

13. On the 5th October he commenced pumping out the water till he had subdued it to a depth of 50 fathoms from the surface. (It will be remembered that he had sunk to a depth of 59 fathoms when the increase of water stopped further progress.) At the 50-fathom depth it was necessary to make a lodgment, or reservoir, for water, as the punips could not conveniently raise the water to the surface at one lift from beyond this depth, and it was therefore decided to raise it by two lifts, one from below the 50-fathom depth to the reservoir, and another from the reservoir to the surface.

14. On the 24th October the reservoir was completed: But here the work received a check. First, two of the boilers gave way, and no sooner were they repaired than the top lift gave way. At last, however, the water was got out, and on the 19th November the sinking was continued from the 59-fathom depth. Again the work was interrupted. This time it was the buckets gave way, and shortly afterwards the two boilers for a second time. Then the pump rods broke, and this accident obliged the manager to reduce the top lift by removing the reservoir from the 50-fathom depth to one of 40 fathoms. Owing to these mishaps much time was lost, but eventually everything was set right, and the process of sinking is once more in full and regular operation. At the time I write the shaft has reached a depth of between 62 and 63 fathoms.

15. These accidents, however, cannot but suggest a consideration as to the possibility of the recurrence of similar interruptions and consequent delay in the progress of the work.

16. All works of this nature are, I understand, subject to interruptions and checks. Of course in a field of operations so distant as this one is from the directing body and from the great centres, such as Glasgow or Newcastle, which supply machinery and new stores suitable for mining purposes, the opportunities for remedying and repairing defects and accidents are unfavourable as compared with those possessed where the field of operations is within immediate reach of all that can be required for their successful and speedy prosecution.

17. In the present instance it would seem the several accidents are traceable to faults in the machinery or apparatus.

It appears that the pumping engine at work has been lying on the Company's premises since 1864 or 1865, and it is only now for the first time that it comes into use. Lying in disuse and neglect for so many years some faults must be expected when the test

i.., the timber lining constructed by Mr. Sinclair at the time the pit was sunk.

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of use is first applied, and it is evident that some deterioration has been the consequence of long exposure and disuse.

For instance, the cause of the boilers giving way appears to have been that some of the plates cracked having become thinned by exposure, and no longer strong enough to bear continued heat. An examination of the interior of the boilers showed also the heads of the iron rivets completely eaten away by rust.

18. One by one difficulties such as these have arisen, and have been overcome by Mr. Gray, and he has proved himself to be fully equal to the situation and to the emergencies which have presented themselves.

19. In reply to the fears I have expressed as to the probability of similar occurrences and delays, Mr. Gray states that so far as he can foresee he has no reason to apprehend a recurrence of them, or the likelihood of any other interruption of this kind except what may always occur from the general wear and tear of the machinery.

20. The only quarter from which he fears the possibility of serious inconvenience is the growth of water. The growth, as it is termed, or constant inflow of water, was, when he first renewed the sinking of the shaft in January 1872, steady at the rate of 800 or 900 gallons per hour. In June it had increased to 3,000 or 4,000 gallons, till it proved too much for the powers of the winding engine and necessitated the substitution of the pumping engine. At the present time the water is coming in at the rate of 14,400 gallons per hour.

As fast as it comes in it is pumped out, and, so long as nothing occurs to prevent the pumps from working, the sinking can be continued, though at some disadvan- tage. The pumps in use are capable of raising 30,000 gallons per hour, but it would be difficult to keep up such a strain for long, and it would be scarcely possible to sink at the same time. Provided, however, the inflow does not increase so as to exceed 20,000 gallons per hour, the sinking can always be proceeded with.

21. Your Lordship will pardon me for having entered into these details, which I have done from a desire that you should be kept accurately informed as to the progress of a

work the successful issue of which is of so much importance to the Colony.

22. Proceeding to the second of the two works to which the mining operations are confined—namely, the output of coal from temporary sources for immediate use-these sources, as I have above stated, were, on Mr. Gray's arrival, limited to the workings known as the Gowrie mines.

23. What was left of these mines was actually all that was left or known of available surface coal.

24. Other fresh crops of surface coal there may possibly be in the district, but none were or are yet known of; and your Lordship will see in this circumstance alone how wrong

it was in the late management to be working out these remaining sources of present and temporary supply when nothing was being done to develop the permanent resources of the mines-that is, the deep coal.

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25. Wrong in every way: it was wrong in the risk it was running—the risk, namely,

crops of exhausting these Gowrie workings, and with them all the known or available surface coal, without the deep coal being first secured; and then night actually have arisen the necessity of obtaining coal from Singapore or elsewhere to feed the engines by aid of which the long and laborious process of sinking to the deep coal can alone be carried on.

26. Yet to this result the course pursued by the late Manager was undoubtedly tending; and if your Lordship will refer to my observations on the past operations of the Coal Companies in the last Blue Book Report, and, in conjunction with that, to my earlier despatch of July 30, 1872, you will recognize the causes by which such a con- tingency has been rendered possible.

27. The late Manager may possibly have thought that the Gowrie surface mines possessed resources which would last sufficiently long to allow of the future sinking of the 100-fathom pit. But, apart from the fact that the prosecution of this latter work should never have been put off as it was put off, it was surely a grievous error to run such a risk as that to which I have referred.

28. The late Manager would have been fully justified in working out coal from the temporary sources he found open to him on his arrival in 1868, provided he had But this contemporaneously prosecuted the work by which the deep coal was to be won.

is just what he did not do. He worked the temporary sources, which he was rapidly bringing to a termination, and he left the larger and more permanent work for a future day. Here was the vital fault of the period of his management—a fault that has almost wrecked the enterprise, and the effects of which the Colony is now experiencing.

29. With respect to the resources of the Gowrie Mines, in one of my despatches I The opinion furnished your Lordship with the views of Mr. Howard upon the subject.*

• August 15, 1872 (Confidential), paragraph 58.

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