FROM THE DEPTHS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1002, 17 December 1910, Page 6

FROM THE DEPTHS.

BUILDING SECTIONS FROM FALCON SHOAL.

HOW THE OCEAN IS CHEATED,

A FAT TIME FOE THE GULLS.

Wellington has been robbing Father Neptune of his broad acres ever since its infancy. Theso encroachments on tho harbour have made tho city, and had this policy never been thought of AYcllingon would'havo been a poor sort of plice. It would have consisted of onesided Thorndon and Lambton Quay, and in heavy northerly weather tho waves would be breaking among the glittering glories of Stowart Dawson's. "Willis Street would hav© had two sides, *biit the baoks of the premises would have stood on piles in tho wash of the tide. Where the Town Hall stands, stately ships would be lying at anchor (for the old beach line was well on the land side of Victoria Street), and just about where Odlin's factory stands, the old G. M.. Tucker, .with a full load from Kaipara, would, shoot kauri logs into tho sea through her gaping nostrils below the Plimsoll line. To scallop out the land on the harbour side of the lino drawn would be to rob "Wellington of half herself. Fair water would ebb and flow between Lambton and Waterloo Quays— between the Government . Buildings (built above the old beach) to the King's "Wharf. Wellington, if left . alone, would certainly have, been a picturesque place, with its single lino' of shops gazing unobstructed out. to sea, and its sliced-off hills sloping naturally down to the water's edge. ■ Tho Start. "Wellington's, first tlieft was in tho vicinity of "Windy Point (on the section now occupied by Stewart, Dawson and Co.). As "Wellington's main 1 thoroughfare led past that corner, then as now. thero was not sufficient road space at the cornel's so a bit of filling was done from the bank opposite. About this . time tho barque Gertrude 'staggered into port like a wounded duck and was beached at Te Aro.. Though a stout enough oaken craft she was deemed unsoaworthy and was sold to the late John Plimmer, who had her towed round to tho rocks of "Windy Point- and firmly beached on the spot now covered by the Bank of New Zealand. Then ho and his lusty sons filled in round, the vessel (which tho inhabitants christened "Noah's Ark") with'earth from the rear of Barrett's Hotel, and'so the seed of reclamation was planted. Tho bight of Lambton Quay was the first to be filled up, then the To Aro foreshore, and the seaward sido of "Willis Street received attention, and so gradually the sea'wbls . pushed back, dry land crept out from tho wholo of the shore line,, until /Wellington became what it is—a city'with tho finest commercial area in- New Zealand..

Not Finished Growing.. It is not finished growing yet. One only has to walk the mile between the General Post. Office and the Thorndon Esplanade to appreciate that Wellington, is still. bluffing the harbour into less and. loss space. Tho Railway Department has reclaimed several acres between Kaiwarra and the Thorndon Fjsplanado ill connection with tho partial straightening"-of tho Hutt line and there it is proposed a recreation ground shall ho created for the people of tho northern end of tho city. The simplo old-fashioned method of tumbling tlio hills into'tho sea is the one followed by the Department. That is not the stylo now favoured by tho Harbour Board in reclaiming the water off the northern end of Waterloo Quay. Hero'a natural, yet unique and economic, method lias been followed-for the past few years, with results truly startling. A training wall has been, run duo north ijito the liarbour from a point north of the King's Wharf. A wooden quay or. staging is run along tho wall, providing berthing accommodation. Then the Harbour Board's great suction and bucket dredge, Wha-ka-riri, comes lumbering in with a load ' of mullock from the floor of the harbour, and discharges it through large steel pipes by means of. her powerful pumps on the other side of the wall. As 50 per cent of the stuff is sand and shell the deposit soon piles up until it peeps above the water and later to the height of the quay in tho distanco.. The . deposit is distributed quite evenly by coupling 'or uncoupling sections of tho piping.

How We Live and Learn. When the Whakariri first arrived in .Wellington it used to fill up with dredgings about the wharves, and piimp them into the sea outside the Heads. Now, tho reverse course is.adopted,precisely. The Falcon Shoal, which threatened at ono time to become a menace to deepwater vessels, has been surveyed, and dredged, and the stuff —five-sixths of which is shell in parts—is now brought into tho wharf, and discharged over the wall to make building • sections for tho morrow. Already over twenty acres have. been- reclaimed in tho neighbourhood by this metho*;' _About a year ■ago the edge of, the newest reclamation ,was about opposite tho Telegraph Stores yard. .Now the harbour is reclaimed to the height of the railway track right down to Pipitea Point. The filling is, strange to say, of the very best. As the shell dries it crumbles, and intermingling with the sand, makes a solid earth body which'will a little later on be just as serviceable for any purpose as the dry land in the distance, though it will always be a matter of going down to tho solid for foundations for a heavy building.

Mr. c. Pulley's Contract. As part of the reclamation scheme, Mr. C. F. Pulley has heen engaged in a big retaining wall, which is the continuation of the Waterloo Quay wall, and is to terminate about a hundred yards off Pipitea Point (out m the harbour). ,'J'his wall, which is Hearing completion, is 1300 ft. in length, and it has a' 16ft. base, and varies from 30ft. to 40ft. .in height. Of the 1300 ft. nearly 1000 ft. of wall is up as high as low-water mark (where it is sft-. !)in. in breadth), and thfi'base of the other 300 ft. odd is already laid. The rest of the work, being, above the water-line, in comparatively easy, and Mr. Pulley hopes to get.;through by tho end o'f February. Speaking to a ' Dominion representative yesterday, he said that the wall would have been completed by the end of -the yoar, but for a shortago of cement, which he considers delayed his contract work for two months or more. Near Mr. Pulley's office is the outlet for the Whakariri's pipe, which shot a fan-like stream of water over the sand it had belched out during the past few weeks. In this broadening stream stood, at least, 300 'or 400 grey seagulls, sleek and unafraid. There thoy stand the . whole time the dredge is discharging, feeding luxuriously on the shell-fish and tasty marino tit-bits which tlio pumps have sucked from the top of the shoal in tlio entrance to the harbour.

. "Seo those gulls," said Mr. FuHcv, laconically, "they won't shift when we pass. They_ are all too fat and lazy since they discovered that banquet. It's not doing them any . good, anyway. Sh !" But the gulls never even winked.