LOW LEVEL TUNNEL.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 14 March 1881, Page 2

LOW LEVEL TUNNEL.

About two hundred and odd feet or this work is already constructed, leaving less than 50 feet more to be driven to com* plete the current contract, and as the work is progressing at the rate of 10 to 15 feet per week, the stipulated distance will soon be reached. It being the intention to let a considerable portion (4000 feet) in the next section, tenders should be called for the work at once to enable the successful contractors to place the requisite machinery for rock boring on the ground in time to allow the driv ing to be continued without interruption at the close of the existing contract. It should be pushed on with all despatch, but unless arrangements are completed in time a long stoppage of the work cannot be avoided, unless the distance of the first section is extended. At the time of crossing the leaders, mentioned in former reports, it WBS the intention of the directors to follow up the discovery as soon as sufficient room had been obtained to commence the process of prospecting without interfering with the operations of the contractors, but as no proviso admitting of such a course had been suggested in the agreement with the Government, which is only bound to subsidise the main tunnel, this project had for the present to be abandoned. However, it is perhaps as well that this point has cropped up at this early stage of the under taking, as it has been the means of | directing attention to a material omission in the agreement, and as the whole plan of the soheme is directed towards the tapping or cutting of all the numerous lodes existing in the Murray Creek district with a confident hope,of other ime portant discoveries, the main object would be practically minimised, were these dis« coveries not followed up as they are made daring the progress of the tunnel.