"We could now form a pretty correct estimate of 'life in the interior of New Zealand,' and of the obstacles the settler has to encounter in a climate, the vegetation of which grows in rank luxuriance almost rivalling that of the tropics. As, however, the Colonial Government attaches the utmost importance to this matter, and expends large sums in laying out good roads throughout the interior, many of the impediments to traffic at present existing will be obviated in a few years. About 9 P.M. we were once more in Drury, and on the following morning, 2nd January, 1859, the little party returned to Auckland, when the geologist of the Expedition made a comprehensive report to Government on the coal-fields of the Drury district, which had first been noticed by the Rev. Mr. Purchas of Onehunga, who employed his leisure in geological studies."
According to the geological researches of Dr. Hochstetter, it would appear that the province of Auckland abounds in good coal that would repay working, especially a brown coal occurring in the tertiary period, which greatly resembles that of Bohemia and Styria. The plains of Papakura and Drury on the eastern shore of Manukau Harbour are part of a rolling country, and are but little above the level of the sea. S.E. and S. they are bounded by a thickly-wooded range of hills from 1000 to 1500 feet in height, running in a direction from S.W. to N.E., or from the Waikato to the Wairoa; it is only in the vicinity of Drury that a portion of this chain trends nearly N.E., rising with a gentle slope from the level land below. At various points on these acclivities strata of coal have been discovered partly by the action of water, partly by human labour, the extent of which, owing to the impenetrable forest vegetation and the consequent lack of natural indications, can only be ascertained by boring.
The coal is of the best quality of that kind of brown coal generally called cannel coal, and is occasionally met with in immense seams. The average thickness of the seam is about six feet. The Drury and Hunua coal-fields seem indeed to be but a part of a far more extensive tertiary formation, which occurs pretty universally throughout the province of Auckland. The obvious practical value and commercial importance of this New Zealand coal can only however be definitely proved, when the various manufacturing processes in which it is used have been fairly set a-going. It might at all events be worth the experiment to erect in the vicinity of the coal mines some manufactories of porcelain, as the utmost variety of clay has been met with in the course of the different borings, all admirably suitable for every branch of that manufacture.