Hawke's Bay Times. PUBLISHED EVERY AND THURSDAY. MONDAY, JUNE 10, 1867.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 483, 10 June 1867, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. PUBLISHED EVERY AND THURSDAY.

MONDAY, JUNE 10, 1867.

“ Nut tun addict us jurare in verua majislri."

An article, which we have reproduced in our columns from a recent issue of the Sydney Morning Herald, shows us that the humidity we have experienced during the past season has been by no means peculiar to No w Zealand, but has ex;ended over a wide area, and that while several districts in various parts of this colony have been visited with floods of a more or less destructive character, the neighboring Colonies of the Australian continent, have been by far more grievous sulfur rers from the same cause. We republish the article in question from a con vie; ion that the lesson it teaches in its prarical hearings will bo found to apply in a great degree to our own circumstances.

! The illustration brought f irward of :the Neapolitan peasantry and their j cultivations on the shies of the volcano whose eruptions have again and again spread devastation over the very spots they cultivate, is striking in its teaching how apt we are, in times of safety, to overlook possible, or even probable, danger ; to act, indeed, as if the present state of affairs were a permanancy. instead of a mere temporary state, —so that when changes come, bringing disasters in their train, they find ur all unprepared to meet them, and often great sufferers from the consequence ol this want of preparation. There is, however, onepoint on which the analogy between Vesuvius and om floods completely fails. The peasant may live in a state between hope that no eruption will take place, and dread of its coming; but be is altogetbei unable to avert it, or to control it; he cannot be prepared against it; if it lakes place during his day and passes over ilia vineyards, his ruin is inevitable; previous warnings have no lessor: for him, but that of terror —for no embankments will protect him against the fiery cataract, and no artificial channels would suffice to divert its course away from him. With us the case is dilfereat. Meterology has become a science, and hydrostatics and engineering are happily well understood, so much so that perfect protection from floods is not only possible, but becomes reduced

to a simple question of ways and means—that is of ha.'nee. The writer in tbs article alluded to shows how, by receiving, storing, and carefully applying the excessive rains of certain seasons, we may bo prepared against the ill results of the opposite stats of things—continued drought. In a country like that of Xew South Wales and South Australia, where long-continued and excessive droughts

of a destructive character are of frequent occurrence, the argument is sound; lut we think that in the moisten climate cf this Colony—and more particularly this Province—it is inapplicable, as the facility with which water, cool and crystal, can be ob tained from below the surface of the earth by means of artesian wells, lias been so fully and satisfactorily proved by actual experience. "What we have to do is to favor the rapid discharge of the rainfall, when in excess, from the land into the sea; and the questions that remain are concerning the most rapid, effectual, and economical method of doing this. The existing obstacles to this rapid ami effectual discharge are, the limited area and depth of the river beds, and the contra-action of the sea, which, in the case of a strong south-east wind, actually piles up the water iu the bay, and forms a mote effectual embankment to prevent tho egress of the water than the banks of the rivers themselves, the consequence being that the water being unable to discharge itself with sufficient rapidity, accumulates, and bursts or overflows its bonds, to the inundation of all the level lands iu its neighborhood.

lii previous issues of this journal we have suggested the construction of a breakwater, extending in a northerly direction from the Bluff, as a mean? if protecting the mouth of the harbor from the action of the sea. We are well pleased to see that our views are endorsed by a respected and influential lellow-townsman in a communication published by our local contemporary, rud also that there is great proha bility of the work being taken up by the Givenuuent; true it is that the difficulties and cost of such a work will bo immense, but the benefit it will prove to the port will be altogether beyond calculation. This however, is a view of the subject which we must reserve for a future article.