SOME ONE HAS BLUNDERED.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1048, 18 June 1883, Page 2

SOME ONE HAS BLUNDERED.

That unfortunate railway embankment continues to be as formidable a difficulty in the way of the completion of the line as ever. It is down again, with a downward tendency. When it will be up to its proper level, and whether, when there, it will stay there, are mysteries deep in the womb of time. The whole affair seems to have been an engineering blander, and an annoying one at that, because of the delay it has caused. The idea was to take the line across the swamp, and that idea having been fixed in the Engineering mind, it does not appear to have been thought necessary to ascertain whether the swamp would stand the weight of the embankment. It was well known that the said swamp was as deep as a well and as soft as an orange, but it did not strike the Engineering mind that those circumstances were likely to interfere with the safe deposit of some thousands of tons of sand. There was water to contend with too, and plenty of it, but the drainage which the Engineering mind considered necessary was the

laying of a few tile pipes, which, of course, got broken and made matters worse. After twenty thousand yards more sand than were estimated in the contract have been deposited upon this precious embankment, a vigorous effort is being made to ascertain where it has all gone to, and how much further it is likely to go. Boring has been commenced, and a depth of thirty-five feet has been reached without touching “bottom. What startling result is to follow when the said “ bottom ” is reached, if ever it is, we are at a loss to determine. Engineers, however, know all about these things. Ordinary business men would have done the boring first and then considered the practicability and wisdom of running the embankment across. The latest idea, we believe, is to put in two deep drains, which it is fondly hoped will carry off all the water and allow the embankment to stand. We hope so too, but don’t think it. There is a lot of filling to be done yet, and we notice that the line leading down from the cutting has been taken up and re-laid, so that when these drains are finished the sand can be; run down in double-quick time. We can but hope that the steps about to _be taken will have the effect of overcoming this troublesome job, but we confess to not being’ over-sanguine about it. Some people imagine that after all the line will yet have to be taken in on to the rock. Had that been done at first, it would have been much better, cheaper, too, we believe, and the probability is that we should now have been enjoying railway communication with Wanganui.