44 W. H. WARREN. 
At the Clarence River a contract has been let for a portion of 
the scheme outlined by Sir John Coode, it being proposed to con- 
struct the long southern training wall only in the first instance. 
This will be constructed by tipping stone from an elevated timber 
staging on piles, the stone being brought up to about half tide 
level. The first stone was tipped into the wall last month. The 
quarry is about four miles from the work, but is connected direct 
‘by a railroad. | 
Various river improvement works are taking place on the 
Bellinger and Nambucca Rivers; and at Trial Bay the break- 
water to enclose a space to form a harbour of refuge is in 
progress by prison labour. This work is in a very exposed 
situation, and in deep water, so that the apparent progress is not 
very marked. 
At Newcastle the principal works in progress are confined to 
dredging, and removal of rocks near the entrance of the harbour 
at a point locally known as the Black Buoy Reef. The situation 
is exposed, and the current being very strong, it would have been 
a most difficult and costly undertaking to remove it by the 
ordinary process of drilling, blasting, and lifting by divers, so it 
was determined to procure what is known as Lobnitz’s Patent 
Rock-cutting Plant; the iron cutter bars (of which three are at 
work at one time), each weigh eight tons and are in various 
lengths up to about forty feet; they have a heavy steel chisel- 
shaped cutting edge, and are raised by steam power and allowed 
to drop from a height of from eight to ten feet by releasing a 
trigger, as in the ordinary pile-driving monkey. The whole 
machinery, which is necessarily of an unusually substantial and 
heavy nature, was made by the patentee, and erected on a large 
iron punt constructed in this harbour. The machine is doing 
good work in cutting and pulverizing the rock, and leaving it in 
a state in which it can be easily removed by an ordinary ladder 
or grab dredge. 
In connection with the harbour works, dredging plays a most 
important part, as the commercial prosperity of New South Wales 
