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Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 30 March 1881, Page 2

The opiuion as to tlie superiority of eitber of the horses Lillipee and Dandj, who com peted for the Cup ot tbe late " Boatman's races being divided among some of our sports, a match has been arranged for Easter Monday to decide the matter.' The race is to be run on tbe smne terms as to distance, weight, and course. The stakes are £200, one-half of which was deposited on Saturday night, the I ' balance to be paid in 1 a fortnight. Articles nnd agreement were drawn up by Mr Lyncb, nnd signed by the paries interested. &fr Brenntm is to act as judge. Phillip Boe, aud not Phillip Jones, ie the

.name of an old Reeftonite, who recently died at Temora, . The Caledonian Extended Company, Larry's Creek, are still continuing the drives north and south, and of late have met with several small detached blocks of quartz thus indicating that they are on the track of the reef. ' We nre indebted lo a gentlcmeri in town for the following testimony to the efficiency of the Mitchell rock bdrer. ; This borer haß only recently been patented at Sandhurst, Tics toria, and there can be too possible doubt as to Us vast superiority oyer the National, Ford's, the Champion, or in fact any other machines in use. The description goes on to say. Durine the week (Match 7th), the Mitchell's rock borer has been submit ted to some very severe tests, out of which it has come triumphantly. The country chosen was of the very, harden character. The Bret hole put' in by the borer was 41. lOin. in depth, the utmost depth to which the drill used would go. This was bored in nineteen and a«half minutes, including all stoppages ; another hole to a depth of 9ft Sin was bored in fifty- six minutes, including stoppages— a feat which has never before been equalled at j Btawell by any other rock borer. Hitherto the Nationaljrock^ borer has held the palmJ The stroke is twice as quick and much stronger, so that it accomplishes nearly double the work. It seems so far to excel the National, that it wiU bore in threequarters of an hour what it would take the latter an hour and a quarter to do, and its wo k in that time would take five men an entire shift of eight hours to accomplish by manual labor. The Comedy and Burlesque Company will commence a short season in Reefton on Thursday evening next in the Oddfellows' Hall. The Golden Fierce Company had a general cleaning up yesterday, the resulting in lhe nett return of 9340jj 9dwt of retorted gold, after eight and a-half weeksicrushing. The quantity of stbnri put through was 1150 tons. The return, although remarkably good, is hardly up to the level of some former yields, which is accounted for by the fact that the stone was taken wholly from the southern portion of the mine, where the reef has never shown so well as it does to the north* The several faces caWy abundance of, stone and the workings are in perfect order, Dr Farrelle will leave for the Lyell this evening, returning to Reefton again on Saturday morning. The Orlando Company have re-com-menced mining operations under the. direction of Mr R. E.'Gulline, mining manager. The tender ofJH» Duggnn was accepted by the County Council for the erection of pro* tective works at Boatman's. A petition ,-' has 'been' presented to the Supreme Court at Hokitika for the compulsory winding up of the Victory Com pan v. A deputation waited on the Government yesterday in reference to the West Coast Railway. r __jTJi|j|y|j)|^ , on^Friiljrßtwnodtr last.' Looking over the report it wHll be seen that the names of fiftytwo persons were struck off the whole of the rolls, namely, 42, at the ic stance of F. Boardman, and 10, at the instance of P. Murphy and 7. Williams. The ground of objection in each case was that the parties were either out of the district, without the required qualification, or otherwise improperly entered. It will further be se<m that 65 applications were made by persons to have their names placed on the rolls, of which 58 were admitted, and their names ordered to be inserted, and 7 refused or withdrawn. A clergyman recently aroused a sleepy audience by asserting in positive terms that notwithstanding that the Government bad signified its intention of doing away with the ten per cent reduction, the wages of sin have not been cut down one iota. In four year's time (says a Home paper) it may be possible to make the whole journey from London to Paris and back by land, and without any change of carriage. The first steps towards the construction of a submarine passage have been taken, and a shaft has been driven to the depth the tunnel can be made. In the upper strata, we are told, there was a good deul of wate*, but ' there was no infiltration of it in the erallery , which is in th* solid rock.' A spcond shaft is to be driven through the bed of the straits, and the directors of the company sny that the tunnel may be completed in 1884 if no unforseen obstacle bribes. Nothing is sacred to the sapper, and there* is no enterprise which the modern engineer need despair of accomplishing if only money is forthcoming. In all probability the Channel tunnel is simply an affair of time, pounds, shillings, and pence. The annual sale of blood stock and purebred sheep at Mr Redwood's Farm at Spring Creek, Blenheim, will take place on Tuesday the sth April. The catalogue of animals to be submitted to the hammer comprises some of the finest thorough-breds in the Austtalasian Colonies. Nine two-year«olds and seven yearlings by such sterling sires as Traducer, Maroro. Korari, Totara, and Puriri will be offered, and also a number of fine brood mares, with foals at foot, and stinted to Anteros and Ramarama. It is also intended that the e tallions Lillipee, Anteros, and Ramarama shall be put up for Bale, if they are not previously disposed of. Such a splendid assortment of animals should meet with ready sale, and an opportunity like this of procuring Rome good blood for this district should not' be lost sight of by our sporting men. Captain Matthews, who was sent to America by the New South wales Government to procure a boring apparatus for the purpose of obtaining a water eupply in the interior hns just returned from Temora, where he bus been resident for the last five months engaged in boring for water. He informs the Asgus that be has succeeded at a depth of 165 ft. in obtaining what he believes to be a permanent supply, arid has put down a shaft 6ft by 4ft. which is now ready to receive the pump. In the course of his opera-

' tionr he has cut several shoots of gold very rich indeed. Burko's reef is 2ft thick, all gotd-bearing, but in some phces so rich that it has been taken out and sent direct to the banks. Gold-bearing pyrites have also been got in the bore at ISOft in the Hope reef the sample brought up in the rods being estimated to yield over 33oza per ton. He has also brought a box of specimens which carry very heavy gold indeed. With regard to alluvial Workings at Temora, Captain Matthews states that there are no less than 200, 000 loads of. stuff ready for paddling when machinery and water are obtained ; the estimated yield being from one to three ounces to the load. . The Wanganui Chronicle says:— The Chairman of the West! and County Council would evidently make his poet worth aspiring to, but captious disappointed opponents are very niggardly. This Chairman, who has received a salary of £41 13s 4d, his horse and buggy hire cost the Council £22 133 6d and at the last meeting he presented an account for a modest £23 17a to recover expenses incurred on certain journeys, one to 'Larrikins.' Now, if this trifle had been gracefully allowed, there would have been some hope of making the billet a respectable one in time, but the aforesaid stingy coun* -enter* irrtwpuwfl, tfuJ itiera Wai i ifWti vttii> cusnion, id the midst of which itee Chairman who, by the way. is the classical and refined Mr Seddon, interjected— ' Ob, tho more you say the worse you get. Let it sweat. As Chairman, I cannot travel about like a Dutch pedlar.' Like a well-known Wellington gentlemen, Mr Seddon is evidently a firm be' liever in maintaining the ' dignity ' of his office, and that »aa so neatly put in his interjection that the Council thereupon agreed to give him £25 with the proviso that in future he be allowed 21s a day when travelling ' by order of the Council.' The New Zealand Times says : — We have not; the slightest objection to a Middle Wand West Coast Railway. On the contrary, we heartily sympathise with our brethern in their desire to thoroughly open up and occupy the fine country at their disposal. We wish them success, and are now commenting on the subject for the purpose of again bringing prominently forward the West Coast Railway schemes of this island. And we roust say that if the Middle Tsland Railway scheme is worthy of serious entertainment, how much more may the proposed West Coast lines of this island demand consideration of the most serious kind. The Canterbury people urge the construction of their line for the sake of onening country in a sew direction, whilst Wellington people demand the construction of their lines for the purpose of connecting in one harmonious whole the miserable fragments of railways that streak the West Coast here and there. The Wellington correspondent of the Wanginui Chronicle says : — As to the latter point (Education) it is of course significant, first, that the portfolio of Education should have been transferred from Mr Rolleston (an ardent secularist) to such a denominationalist as Mr Johnston, the mouth.piece of the Catholics, and the open and avowed foe of the present system, should be taken into the Ministry. I think now — a3 I have thought for a considerable time past— that there is certain to be some change in the Act brought forward next session, principally in the direction of reducing the curabrousness and enormous expense of the present system. Reform in these respects, is. t think, already demanded by the public. hether any change will be made in denominations* lism I think depends very largely upon the direction in which public opinion makes itself felt during the next few months. A discovery. — A room, kept by a woman, where other women meet to play poker, has been discovered in Cincinnati. A rule of the house was that every lady should leave in time to reach home before her husband, so as to be on hand to blow him up for staying out so late.— Philadelphia News. American ingenuity (observes the London Daily Telegraph) has put forth an amazing project for connecting Great Britain with the United States by the transatlantic railway. Rejecting the notion of driving a tunnel under the ocean as too tedious and expensive the deviser* of the scheme propose to sink upon the Atlantic bed an iron tub some 3000 miles long and 26 f t in diameter, through which two trains may travel simultaneously with perfect convenience and safety. As however, this tube would be subject to exterior water pressure equal to that of about 120 atmospheres, its casting will have to be dt least Bin thick. The tube is to consist of seotions, each 160 ft in length, and is to be laid down in the following manner .—Five sections are to be welded together upon firmly anchored pontoons, both ends of the length thus prepared for sinking, being hermetically cloned, but in such a way that they can be opened from within. Then die entire compartment 800 feet long, is to be lowered into the sea by steel chains, so that it shall reach the bottom in immediate proximity to the section it is intended to join. The junction will, of course, be effected by submarine workmen; and these processes will be carried on with undeviating regularity, starting from the American Coast, un» til the shores of Ireland shall be attained by the mighty tube. Meanwhile the laying of rails, telegraph wires, lighting and ventilaapparatus, and so forth, will go on inside the , tube as it grovrs longer and larger. Mr | Edison believes that he can perfect an electric locomove to draw the trains along through the tube in fifty hours from shore to shore, and the cost of the whole line, rolling stock included, is not to exceed 160 millions sterling. The o^cial declaration of awards to exhibitors took place recently. A public holi* day was observed, and 20,000 people visited the exhibition. Six thousand nine hundred and forty-one awards were made and 581 honorable mention*. New Zealand has ob« tamed 311 awards.