Buarr.—On the Building Materials of Otago. 165 
iron in cartage, timber work, and labour, amounting to 10s. per square, or 
16 per cent. on materials and labour combined. 
This is a large proportion, as such ; but when we consider that it only 
scien about £10 on a house forty feet square, the wonder is that any 
. iron is used. Whether regarded as a matter of appearance, freedom from 
sound, and extremes of temperature, or durability, the superiority of slate 
over iron is undoubted, and were the difference in cost twice as great, the 
balance of advantages would be still on the same side. 
_ From the Customs returns I find that, in 1874, there were imported 
into Dunedin alone— 
219,800 slates, value... ere .- £1,849 
and 1836 tons of corrugated iron, vittis i ... 40,190 
Making a total of eS ae ae .. £42,089 
Assuming that £12,039 worth of iron is used for the walls of houses, 
fencing, and similar purposes, we leave a balance of £30,000, as sent out of 
the Province for roofing materials, which, in all probability, we have at our 
doors. I question the wisdom of fostering, or encouraging, at this early 
stage of our history, every industry that may ultimately be required, or that 
may succeed in the colony at some future time; but, in the case of a low- 
priced article like slates, the value of which is doubled by freight, and the 
other charges of importation, there is little wanted to turn the scale in 
favour of the native production. 
I believe the enterprise that establishes and carries on the industry, and 
the individual support it receives, is sufficient to do so; we may, therefore, 
hope to see the imported roofing materials fairly supplanted by the colonial 
article at no distant day. 
In concluding this division of my subject, I must repeat what I said at 
the outset as to the paucity of our information on the building materials of 
Otago, and the importance of the question. 
Although I hope these papers will reveal a number of new facts, the 
researches that I have made in compiling them enable me to say, with 
greater emphasis than at the beginning, that our resources are still practi- 
cally unknown. 
The importance that is attached to the collection and diffusion of know- 
ledge of this kind throughout the Colony was forcibly brought under my 
notice a few months since, by seeing in the papers that it was proposed to 
build the Auckland Docks of Aberdeen granite. Undoubtedly granite is the 
best building stone in existence ; but it is also the dearest, and for this pur- 
pose it is no better than the stone of which the Port Chalmers Dock is 
