CAB7-4 — Page 440

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Appendix No. 4.

FALKLAND ISLANDS.

412

List of Plates accompanying this Report.

I. Chart of Stanley Harbour, showing direction of Lines of Fire.

II. Ordnance Point Battery, with Engineer Ridge and Navy Point Battery. III. Navy Peninsula Lines and Blanco IIill.

IV. Sapper's Hill Works.

V. Stanley Settlement Redoubts.

VI. Horse Point and Hooker's Point Batteries.

VII. Photographs of Views about Stanley Harbour.

VIII. Shaded Plan from Major Cautley's Sketch Sheets.

Poor moorland.

General Remarks.

The

The east end of the Falklands is an especially poor moorland country. "Common land" for Stanley Set- promontory on which Stanley Settlement is situated has been reserved as common land for

the benefit of the Settlement.

tlement.

Sheep feed on it.

Horses wander.

But little milk.

Poverty of the Colony.

Inclosures.

Power over land.

Drainage.

Sewage to Hooker's Point. Application of windmills. Building materials.

Sandstone.

Sea sand.

Bricks.

The best house in Stanley.

Materials must be imported. No trees.

Fencing.

Beech at Punta Arenas.

Mr. Reynard's Prices.

Delivered on the beach near Punto

Arenas.

Per 1,000. £ s. d.

Inch boarding (super.) 5 0 0 Scantlings*

4 15 0

* Those would be cheaper on

taking a quantity.

Necessity for military labour.

In winter time the scanty pasture will not suffice for the few cows and horses required at Stanley. Yet some portion of this common is now let for sheep feeding, and horses will consequently stray away 10 and 12 miles in search of food. When these horses are brought in, and kept shut in or tethered for the night, with little to eat, they are not fit for hard work the next day. Fresh milk is scarce, and fresh butter must be imported from distant farms.

The Colony is very poor, and the Settlement of Stanley could do nothing to facilitate defence works.

The inclosures about the Settlement are very small paddocks-all below the Murray Heights.

The Government has power reserved over all lands, even, I believe, over freehold estates.

The drainage of Stanley is at present into the harbour; but if the town were increased by the addition of naval and military depôts, all sewage matter must be taken elsewhere.

Either it must be pumped over the Murray Heights to a suitable valley, or it might be conveyed in pipes 34 miles to Hooker's Point, and there be discharged into the Atlantic.

Windmills might be used for pumping water or sewage.

For building materials there are at hand unlimited supplies of sandstone, sea sand, and clay.

The sandstone in some places breaks into good cubical blocks, in some it is poor stuff;. it would work well for concrete.

The sea sand is very fine; shingle can be collected in small quantities.

Bricks might be made from the clay. A man named Clitheroe showed me a few bricks he had burnt for his own cottage. He had to be careful that the wind did not dry the clay too fast when moulded.

On the south of the Carenage a peat bank, filled with clay in the middle, took fire (as often happens), and the clay was burnt to brick and clinker.

Nobody has tried making bricks in quantity yet.

The Falkland Island Company built a house for their agent of bricks from England, and it cost about twice as much as the same house would have cost in England.

All building materials, except stone, sand, and bricks, must be imported. There are no trees, not even stakes large enough for fencing.

Timber lasts well, and peat banks stand a long time, but they frequently catch fire. Fencing is generally imported from England (wire and iron posts), or posts of Magellan beech may be procured from Staten Island, or from Punta Arenas, in Chile.

There is abundance of beech forest at Punta Arenas, and three saw-mills, one worked by Mr. H. L. Reynard, British Vice-Consul, supplies stuff as per margin.

The wood warps, but would be very useful for fencing posts, sleepers, and plant generally.

Hard and very lasting woods are to be obtained from Monte Video.

Extensive work could best be carried out by military labour: the working parties at the commencement arriving by instalments, and bringing with them everything except meat, flour, beer, and spirits.

Huts would be necessary, and they should not be too airy, as the constant winds are very penetrating.

Civil labour, skilled or unskilled, could not be obtained in Port Stanley.

The present prices are for a labourer 6s. per day; for a carpenter, 10s. per day. A half- holiday is allowed on Saturday.

During October, November, and December, a man who gets a job cutting peat can earn 15s. per day.

I think any contractor who undertook work at Port Stanley would collect inferior men of all nations from the Plate district and from Chile.

*Not printed.

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