Building Stone

At Waimea Plains, Mataura, Castle Rock, Dipton, Waiau, and Limstone Plains, of excellent quality, is known to exist. Several circumstences have combined to delay working these deposits, except for buildings in the several localities. But business enterprise will in due course ensure these quarries being efficiently and profitably worked. Mr Blair, Engineer in Chief of the South Island, in a report, says that the granular limestone found in Southland exists in a broad zone extending across the country from the Mataura to the Waiau. It belongs to the same class as the famous Oamaru stone, but is much harder and heavier, and will absorb only one third the quantity of water that the page 8 Island oyster is highly esteemed in Melbourne, and with suitable welled crafts there is no reason why we should not in time have a largo and profitable trade with Australia.

Then again there are the fish with which the rivers and lakes of this district are being stocked. I recently tasted a splendid river trout which turned the scale before it was cooked at 7 lbs, and from the accounts given by residents in several parts of the district a few years will so increase the supply of trout that they will become available for daily consumption.