MILITARY ROADS.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1715, 16 August 1862, Page 3

MILITARY ROADS.

rp . finch 1 iIIERE 19 but one opinion of the politics are [ and provincial benefit derived from the mcible mirable road constructed by the troops undA aces > ■ the command of His Excellency Licutcnaii rre<iGeneral Cameron, C.E. Whether regard* in n military or social point of view, means of opening-up a previously all b. t h en impassable lino of country, its great, imd a paramount utility can never be over cstimatcwbich It has been by the conquests achieved 1 We roads that all barbarous peoples have be* n ® xt reduced to a state of civilization; and experience of all conquerors has sufficed l demonstrate that one yard of practical unt q roadway is worth a hundred yards of sap ;-han a the road to Pokeuoe will live in the annacomes of New Zealand, long after the memory ken to the Huirangi sap shall have vanished. thrust To the security from attack, vouch P a . lr by the road to Waikato, the colonists Auckland have every reason to be gratefj, u<T hj a Well and manfully have the soldiery labor, rapid in our cause, and most deserving are thouttiug therefore, of every consideration on the pieigns. of the public; that the public would glatP^i n o‘ see the soldiery adequately compensated • a 4 inventheir arduous labours, we entertain not tj an j J . f shadow of a doubt. But have the soldic pi acet i been adequately compensated ? They the one on selves think not; and as wo quite concur} to the opinion, we trust, before they again are pladpunt of on the roads, that an amended and mefotches, liberal scale of pay will bo accorded, both!*^*. lt ’ men and officers, not only on the score j|^ t justice but of true economy. ~

Many calculations have been made, and Je d the have seen none by which the soldier has b(ye, and a gainer by the small allowance of extra rtf’ a short pay. One careful estimate, makes out t? la ? t^ie with guard days, half days, sickness, other causes of absence, the working days- w ’ last season did not exceed one hundred; th(|hrough at nine pence per diem, would give £3 Iponding per man, whilst the wear and tear in esfekening boots, trousers, blue shirts, ike.,' woftye. At

amount to £4 10s., leaving the poor soldf 8 . sltt,n S after a season of hard labour and great , waß comfort, fifteen shillings out of pocket. N^ig^y no colony can ever wish to profit by !es bein'' soldier’s loss; aud, if it did, it mustta a small sufficiently obvious that any body of ie being in, compelled so to labour will shirk and 4 16 which their work. A fair day’s wage for a fair cL over the work is an honest raaxium all the world o a “, ? a T e ... . erted into and quite as necessary an incentive | a s)i j e t0 soldier notwithstanding that ho is a “,’l e j w as under authority.” Wo moot this queajn’the gold now because of the strong aud reasoul in strips fooling that prevails in camp and in city f ted upon respect to it. If, as is assumed, the trl 0 * 1 wou * ( |, are again to bo employed in road making 01 ” 8

strikes us as most desirable, if they be| cte( n iea p S pectod to work with a will, that the wor|iiy worth pay, both of men and officers, be incroa fact not in due proportion. Men may be marje numbers on to the roads, aud they may be if 1 Austrapellcd to work; but with fair rcmur tion, the compulsion may be converted . a boon, and the work, instead of flaggy, bo carried cheerily onward. As oue v( teer is asserted to bo worth a dozen prate,” May 17.] men, why not call for volunteer road-mi^t important from the different regiments? Were Ji, fitted out done, we feel convinced it would bo hl o^ 0 ! 11 1( j" with universal satisfaction, aud that, u^”f ac V tha t such a system, ton men would perform^indebted for work of thirty, their pay being iucrof Zealand, alto a triflo more than the o ieal extra clothing entail. Wo have thrown these suggestions because of tho strong : ing which wo are aware is prevalent, because wo feel persuaded that, wi<

j Tf' ' 'r * -■ ■'' y 1 1 " ri I '' ■ i mineral weath and still greater scientific interest, to •which we should have thought British geologists ■would have promptly and even eagerly betaken them- ' selves. Dr. Hochstettcr’s surveys were necessarily very restricted. Those which he has already published have appeared in our columns, and Dr. Haast, whose valuable explorations in the provinces of Nelson and Canterbury wo have also reported, is still following them up in the colony with great success. We have been favoured with the following translation from the German report of Dr. Hochstetter on the Isthmus of Auckland, New Zealand:—The great southern mass of the North Island of New Zealand is connected with the narrow peninsula stretching away to the north-west by a small isthmus in about the 37th parallel ot south latitude. On the eastern side the sea penetrates deeply into the land by the Gulf of Hauraki, with its numerous islands, washing in its south-western branch-the so-called Waitemata River —the northern side of the Isthmus. On the west coast, the exposed weather-side of New Zealand, ths occanjhas forced a narrow entrance through the hard volcanic conglomerate rock, expanding inland and forming the southern shore of the isthmus, under the name of the Bay of Manukau. The general width of the isthmus is here not more than fire or six miles, and is further reduced in two places, where narrow creeks of the Waitemata River penetrate deeply in a southern direction towards the Galt of Manukau, to about an English mile. These spots have been used from time immemorial by the natives to carry their canoes across from one side to the other, and have naturally often turned the attention of the colonists to the feasibility of cutting a canal to join the two bays. That this important plan will be eventually carried out i there is no reason to doubt, as it is only a question of time and expense. The western isthmus, which is called the “ Whau portage,” is a mile wide and only 111 feet high at its greatest elevation, whilst that to the east, near Otahuhu, south of Mount Richmond, and known by the name of the “ Tamaki portage,” is only 3,900 feet long and 66 feet above the level of the sen. Whilst the Waitemata River forms the most central harbour on the cast coast of the island, so rich and safe and accessible ports', the Bay of Manukau on the west coast is by far the best on that side, and, indeed, the only one that can be frequented by large vessels without danger. Great credit is due to the penetration of Captain Hobson for selecting tuis beautifully situate narrow isthmus for th 6 site of the future capital of New Zealand and the scat of Government, for which it is most admirably adapted, being so easily approached on both sides. No other spot on the Northern Island combines with a central situation the same advantages of a safe and easy water communication in every direction; for to the numerous arms of the sea that indent the land on all sides must be added the natural waterroads of the Northern Island - the large and navigable rivers—the Kaipara, the Wairoa, the Waikato, the Piako, and the Waiho, which arc all quickly and easily accessible from the isthmus. Auckland, the present capital of New Zealand, as well, as of the province of Auckland, the seat of the Colonial and Provincial Governments, was founded in the year 1840, on the northern side of the isthmus, on the shores of the deeply indented Waitemata. Annually increasing in extent and prosperity, it contained in 1860 more than ten thousand flourishing inhabitants —whilst an equal number are found residing ill the immediate vicinity of the capital and its suburbs. A good macadamised road leads from Auckland to Onehunga, on the shores of the Bay of Manukau. This rising place was originally a settlement of civil and military pensioned officers, to each of whom the Government gave a cottage and an acre of land, but it has now assumed the importance of a town, and on account of its charming situation and the romantic beauty of the surrounding neighbourhood, becomes every year more and more the favourite residence of the more wealthy of the colonists, who have their business at Auckland and their dwelling at or in the vicinity of Onehunga. Between these two isthmus towns lie a number of country houses and farms scattered about, and at the points of intersection with other roads whole villages have sprung up, among which are Newmarket, Mount St. John village, and Epsom. All over the isthmus nearly every trace of the original wilderness has disappeared, and the native vegetation is succeeded by European trees and plants; stone walls and green hedges separate the possessions of the new owners of the land, and wherever the nature of the soil admits of it arc to be found beautiful meadows, gardens, fields, and plantations. Cattle are seen grazing peaceably on the farms, omnibusses and other conveyances enliven the roads, and the total effect to the eye is that of a well ordered and flourishing colony of enterprising, peaceful, and wealthy settlers. In a geological point of view, the Isthmus of Auckland is one of the most interesting and peculiar volcanic districts in the world. It owes its own unique physiognomy to a great number of extinct volcanoes with their craters more or less in a state of preservation, streams of lava forming extensive fields of this volcanic matter at the foot of the parent cone from which they emanated, as well as the tuffa craters which surround, like an artificially constructed circular wall, the cone of eioption formed by the gradual deposit of dross and other erruptive productions strewed without any regularity all over the isthmus and the adjacent coasts of the' Waitemata and Manukau. The volcanic eruptions appear to have broken out each time at a ;differont spot, and thus have covered the country with an innumerable quantity of small eruptive cones, all now extinct craters; in the immediate neighbourhood of Auckland in a square of twenty miles in extent by twelve in breadth, there are no less than sixty-one all plainly defined and recognisable. They arc of all sizes and elevations, mostly from 100 to 300 feet above the level of the sea, and the highest is that called Rangitoto, which forms a separate little island of itself near the entrance to Auckland Harbour and rises to the height of 920 feet. But they are perfect models for giving a complete insight into the formation of craters by volcanic action, opening a rich field for the prosecution of geognostic researches, and completely refuting Leopold von Buch’s theory of elevation craters, so implicitly believed in by the scientific world in Germany.* They rise from a substratum of tertiary sandstone and marly clay, whose horizontal deposits (only here and there locally disturbed) are fully visible in innumerable places along the steep cliffs of the Waitemata and Manukau Bays, whilst an examination of the localities proves that eruptions have taken place at repeated periods and with different sorts of volcanic action at one and the same place. The most primitive eruptions—probably submarine and at the bottom of a shallow bay not much exposed to the agitations of the wind —consisted of loose masses, fragments of the rocks themselves, slacks, and volcanic ashes. The eruption took place in several successive shocks, and the volcanic matter was, therefore, deposited in layers, one over the other, around the centre point, forming gently rising cones with a more or less circular and basin-shaped crater in the middle—tuffa cones and tuffa craters. The Pupaki Lake, on the north shore; the Orakei Bay, to the cast of Auckland ; Gedde’s Basin, near Onehunga; the Basin of Waimagoia, near Panmure; and the Kohuroa Hill, south of Otahuhu, are all beautiful specimens of these tuffa craters. Like the so-called Maaren in the volcanic region of tne Eiffel, in Germany, these basins arc very deep and full of water —that of the Sweetwater Lake of Pupaki has a depth of 28 fathoms, or 168 feet, —though occasionally flat and dry or covered with marsh and bog. Where they are situated near the sea, the side has been broken in by the continued action of the waves, and the sea flows in and out with the tides. On account of the extremely fruitful nature of the volcanic soil, those tuffa cones play a conspicuous part in the domestic economy of the settlers round Auckland, as the summit of most of them is crowned by farm buildings or dwellings. The practical good sense of these farmers has taught them, without any knowledge of geology and without in the least suspecting that they were buffing their houses on the verge of a crater, to select these tuffiv craters for the residence and the seat of their farming operations, and the grazing lands and clover fields formed on them arc clothed with most beautiful and luxuriant verdure, favourably contrasting with the sterile clayey soil of the original rocks, which are covered only with bushes of fern and manukau ( Leptospermum). Shortly alter the first primitive eruption, the whole of the isthmus district appears to have been subject to a slow and gradual upheaval, by which the subsequent instances of the volcanic action were accomplished above the level of the sea, and, consequently, dry land. Uurin< r this secondary period, large masses of red hot slacks'weic emitted and streams of liquid lava ejected

in considerable quantities. In those days the volcanoes of Auckland were really "fire-spitting mountains" (Fever Spiende Barge) in the most literal sense, heaping up around their funnel shaped crater the slacks,, lapilli, and other produce of volcanic action, with a ' slope of from 30 to 35 degrees, at Mount Eden, Three Bangs, Mount Smart, Mount Wellington, and others;, and in those places where repeated eruptions of lava took place, cones of lava were formed, as at Bangitbto. Where these fresh outbreaks occurred, the cone of . slacks rises conspicuously in the centre of the crater ring of tuffa; and in proportion to the mass of the eruptions, as well as the measure of the subsequent subsiding of the surface—probably after the extinction of the volcanic action,—they form larger or lesser islands, resting on the bottom of the tuna craters or filling them with water. Fetrographically speaking, the substance of all the , Auckland volcanoes is identical and homogeneous, consisting of a porous basaltic lava with a large admixture of olivin and making admirable materials for building, whilst the slacks are profitably used foi metalling the roads. Were the name of Bangitoto to be read in the sense of its literal meaning—the " bloody Heaven"—as conveying the idea of reflecting in a dark night the red light produced by the eruption of liquid lava, and which may have induced the natives to give it that fanciful appellation, it might be used as an argument to prove that the volcanoes of tbe Auckland district have only" been extinguished at a very recent period and were seen in action by the natives a few generations back; but this is, for many scientific reasons, very unlikely to be the case. On the other hand, it is not to be denied that there are strong grounds for believing that the volcanoes were in full activity not long ago, speaking geologically, and that in fact they belong to the present geological period of the earth —in proof of which it may be here mentioned that the volcanic ashes cover the ground everywhere, and that the streams of lava, which are unquestionably of different dates, all took the direction of the valleys nearest to the crater out of which they originated. These vallej 8 must consequently have been extant when the streams . of lava flowed into them, and therefore the surface of the country has not since that period undergone any . material alteration. Whilst the Auckland volcanoes are now the ornaments of a district transformed from its native wildness to a beautiful and well cultivated garden by the industry and enterprise of European immigrants, they involuntarily awaken recollections of a wonderful period of ethnological history. Only a few generations ago the Isthmus of Auckland was inhabited by a powerful tribe of Maories—the Ngatiwatuas,—numbering from twenty to thirty thousand of both sexes. The extinct craters, with their commanding situation and extensive view all round, played a conspicuous part in the habits and domestic economy of the savages —like the robber castles on the Rhine and other parts of Germany in the middle ages. Their summits were the strongly fortified defences or pahs of the chieftains of this warlike race, whilst at their feet lay scattered the cottages of their dependents amidst the extensive fields of the kumara which they cultivated for their food. The slopes were formed into regular terraces and defended by rows of strong palisades. In the present day these houses and cottages no longer exist, the formidable palisades have disappeared, and the Maori castles are in ruins. The terraces alone remain as the sole memorial of the brave and warlike race that was exterminated during the bloody wars of the cannibal chieftain Hongi, called "the New Zealand Napoleon," about tho year 1820, whose deeds of arms are now only recorded in tradition and song.