THE WAIMAKARIRI.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18218, 31 October 1924, Page 11

THE WAIMAKARIRI.

TO THZ 501703 0? "TEX TFJIS? " ' t*ir.— Tho city's long experience "with, j lb-. Wa-uraki; ;ri river is r-nv being supplemented by the best engineering i advice-, available: in the Dominion, and | V!e Tru-t is r.ow advancing largo and | expensive methods or dealinc; with the I i'.f'--. There trill be r , O deiny, and I iii>- oj-<ration« of the Trust will tend to | ■'.-(■?'.":.t> fijccard and to be applied to ; urher v;to:s m vj a i counts contig;;- '. iJ -- to tb>-- Ashley, may. before jeug. [-.-• c-dlrd -;pon ;o earrv out and i:.amt:>iu *orks of .1. similar kind in rirej. Mr Wood's address List. y-uh:_ v--hs ?r> weighty and couipreheas-i'-'c- Ln.\t. at is (.10.-'.\ ww cared to 1 !-" r ;t-cr mto a prolonged dhcusficn. -Mr J \\oo.-i. ho-.vc.ver. ottered to reply u> I ard I the libertv of 1 :l v^', r, ~ lrom him further considoraiiou : "i ti:ar part or lus re heme whkh sov-tus j to rno. to have the weakeit grounding or | .p:st:rieat:on — proposal "to conduct t.w; nvt-r from about brown's Keek to tuo Empire bridge bv a. serpentine course ; a course of about half a mile iu_ Micith, parsing from side to side, fairly ..loselv keening to the present cv.nrs-o of tho main flow. For sonio miles below Jjrown's road it seeks the south brnik'. then crosses to the left or north bank, it for miles, ami then p.sain crosses/to the south. 'Die \v.d:')- 1,-ie river the sharper, probably, yonld ! v thu swaying, and if one can 1 imagine the. widih of the. river to narrow eomi:niou-\!y. one will rind, T think, thai- the, swaying will decrease to a minimum and the river run uniformly down it-, narrow ehannel, as i tuotis a straight tlume or race. But Mr \\oixl apparently, -would not, agreo -uit.h this vie-.v. and he based his adoption or the serpentine course, for tho flow, on the statements of engineers in river work that they could not keep a river's flow to a. straight eourse on account of the tendency to sway. One may certainly ask what rivers, and what -work was done, and what, failures were noted* Tho subject, I fancy, would hardly be touched in ordinary tverks <'ti hydraulic?. Not considering, for the moment, the shingle-carrying power of a river, the course of a stream may he likened to tho running of a far along a formed road, although when running on the medalled centre a enr certainly tends to co a little from side to side., yet—aud this is my argument against Mr TV"ood—it >'s easi.M- to keep it nn the crown of t.he road than to bold if up when running on the. roadside. So. wheu a stream leaves the centre and runs along a. side bank and is able to overflow, it is moro difficult to restrain than -when in the centre; and if roads were constructed in t.he way proposed for the river, the metal would havo to be placed in a sinuous line from side to sid-e. The outstanding feature of tho river is its easterly bend from the Halkett, district, becoming oven northerly a.fc Kaiapoi, and tho south bank has therefore io exercise continual force or resistance against tho huge streams to turn them towards >eso directions. Evou in the case of a. narrow central chauuel, the south embankments would bo frayed more severely than tho northern. No proposal will escape the main fact of the river.--Yours, etc.. J AS. R. WILKINSON. Lobufn, October 30th.