The Hawke's Bay Times, Published every Monday and Thursday. "NULLIUS ADDICTUS JURARE IN VERBA MAGISTRI." THURSDAY, 5th APRIL, 1866. NAPIER WATER SUPPLY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 364, 5 April 1866, Page 2

The Hawke's Bay Times, Published every Monday and Thursday. "NULLIUS ADDICTUS JURARE IN VERBA MAGISTRI." THURSDAY, sth APRIL, 1866. NAPIER WATER SUPPLY.

The question of the supply of pure fresh water to the Town of Napier is one of the greatest possible importance. Year by year the supply from the rainfall seems to become less ami less, while to the great majority of the inhabitants this is the principal source of supply. The past eighteen months has strikingly shown the peculiarity of Napier in this respect by contrast with the rest of the Colony. From almost every other place we have read of frequent floodings of the country from excessive rain,—of excessive damage done to whole districts from the overflow of the rivers, and their destructive force, — while from Hawke’s Bay alone complaints have continually arisen of a parched and burnt up country, aud the sufferings of the flocks and herds, as well of the great inconveniences suffered by the inhabitants of the town from a deficiency of the prime necessary of existence and health— puke watee. As a rule, the sinking of a well is a great undertaking in Napier, yet one that many of the townsfolk have accomplished. In these the water is only found at a very great depth, and involves great labor with a windlass to bring it to the surface; and even then it is not what is wanted—being hard from the fact of its containing a salt of lime in solution; though, in other respects, generally good, and so far pure. We see no reason why the system of artesian wells should not be applied to the necessities of the townsfolk. Wherever that system has been properly tested in other parts of these islands it has been eminently successful, and we believe that it would prove the same in our case ; but it is too much for any private individuals to undertake upon their own responsibility before the feasibility of the plan has been tested and proved. Let then the Provincial Government take the matter in hand, and by an experimental boring (say upon the Spit) set the interesting and important question of the practicability of a supply from this source at rest; not that we see any reason whatever to doubt the success of the plan, which has many considerations in its favor, not the least of which is the well-known fact of the existence of a body of fresh water beneath the shingle—both upon the Western Spit and at the end of Hastings-road—surrounded in each of these cases by the salt water of the sea and of a lagoon, or the harbor-thus showing the existence of alternations of permeable and impermeable strata of earth—the very conditions of the artesian theory*