322 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
appear in the clouds driven in from the sea. A railway line is 
being started up this valley; the first six or seven miles is one 
series of tunnels, bridges, and fills. It must be an expensive 
project, and we wondered how it can ever replace the motor 
lorries and busses now in operation. New Zealand railways, it 
should be remembered, are owned by the government and are 
not built as competing lines but to give service to the commun- 
ities through which they pass. 
THE MAIN TOWNS OF THE WEST COAST 
Westport at the mouth of the Buller river is a thriving town 
of four thousand inhabitants. It has a good bar harbor and is 
the chief coal port of New Zealand. Nearly a million tons are 
exported annually to other parts of the Dominion and to other 
countries. The coal is bituminous and cokes well. The Mount 
Rochfort coal-field contains two seams, the upper is one to six- 
teen feet in thickness, and the lower is three to thirty feet 
thick. The Mokihinui field also has two seams; the larger, ac- 
cording to Park, maintains a thickness of sixteen to twenty feet 
over a considerable area. The estimated quantity of available 
eoal in the Buller district is close to 150,000,000 tons. New 
Zealand has an abundance of coal, and it is well distributed 
throughout both islands. In kind it varies from semi-anthracite 
to lignite. The coal mines of the Dominion employ some 4000 
men, and over one hundred mines are in operation. The coals of 
the Westport district rank among the best of the bituminous 
kind and are well known bunker coals. 
Greymouth at the mouth of the Grey river is the chief port 
and largest town of Westland. It has a population of over 
8,000, including the Grey valley boroughs. It is the center of 
the state-owned collieries which produce some half a million 
tons of coal annually. The river’s mouth has been converted 
into a safe harbor by means of a large breakwater over one- 
half mile long, but the minimum depth over the bar is only 
twelve feet. The walls are built of local Tertiary limestone as 
attested by the echinoids and other fossils seen in the rock. The 
Grey river enters the ocean by way of a narrow but conspicuous 
watergap cut through a high ridge which is close to the shore 
and parallel to the coast. The gap makes the town very windy 
but serves as the only outlet for roads and railroads to the 
