The Invercargill Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1862.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 15, 30 December 1862, Page 2

The Invercargill Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1862.

Won dEri- vl ore the strides that science has made during the last fifty ■ V ofirs — wonderful the pace at which she has advanced during the year of grace IRG2. Do you want to give a quietus to your intimate friend— the discoveries of the last few years enable you to do so with a minimum chance of detection. Perhaps you are a man of business, or apolitician — the electric telegraph will Hash your messages half way round the globe, almost as quickly as you can find time to write them. Great, however, as has been the progress of science on land, those " who go down to the sea in ships," and .sometimes, unfortunately for themselves and the owners, never come again, have benefited quite as much by it — if, indeed, not more — than their less adventurous brethren. There are new ships aid new ways of navigating them, not to mention the improved system adopted for providing them with crews. There is iron where wood was formerly used, steam where canvas formerly did the work; in short, so complete are present arrangements in matters nautical, that when a man is so ! stupid ns to fall overboard, the chances ' are that on lbing to the surface he

finds himself encircled by a patent life-buoy. What with revolving lights, the theory of storms, and the labors of Admiral Fitzroy, it is really astonishing what has been accomplished since the days " when Noah entered into the Ark. 1 ' How vast the improvement in the management of liarbors ! Take notice, if you please, of the superior class of pilots ; count, if you can, the new light-houses ; examine the minutely particular charts, and the beacons which guide the good ship to where, held by a patent anchor, she may, in safety, defy the power of the elements. All these changes, and their name is legion, have been the work of great and good minds. To bring them to a happy issue has required careful investigation and judicious application, and mankind gene- j rally have been benefitted by the innovation. But we have not mentioned the latest improvements. To learn them New Zealand must furnish the school, and the liarbors of Southland the examples. We, in our simplicity, fora long time imagined that the best way to render a harbor serviceable and safe, was to cause accurate surveys of it to be made, and have its channels well defined by the mooring of buoys and erecting of beacons. We must have been wrong — dreadfully wrong. The best way, according to Southland practice, to make a harbor safe — and, at the same time, furnish new arrivals with something to stare at, and a theme with which to edify their friends at horne — is to strew its shores with the miserable remnants of such vessels as are rash enough to attempt an entrance. The more numerous these mementoes of the past, the more security will (here be for the future. What Captain could miss the mouth of the Bluff Harbor when he sees another wreck or so near where the Prince Albert lies outside the Heads? ! How can he run ashore after passing | them, when the presence of a large j ship indicates the position of the channel to a nicety. There lies the " Flying Mist," and there the fast decaying t imbers of the ill-fated Ocean Chief, whilst \onderis the place where so recently the Robert Passenger was j well-nigh adding another to the list of; unfortunates. I We should, of course, be wrong in j statinir that all Southland shipping | casualties are attributable to a want of proper beacons and laudmarks. Oilier parts of the world j furnish instances of wrecks caused by bad pilots or rash and incompetent masters. But whether these accidents cpn be set down to either of the above causes or not, their true history would be worth a very close inspection. According io the regulations laid down by the Trinity Hoard, there should bo white buoys on the starboard ! side cumin'/ inln a harbor, and black i buoys ou the port side, and wherever ! an obstacle exists in the channel there j should be a chequer buoy. Let us see ] how these regulations are observed in ! Southland Harbors. In the New Jliver j tin- re tire ciu'iit or nine fairway buoys j (showing the centre of the channel ) j and one gn en one, marking the rock j ou which some time since the '-Guiding Star"' knocked a hole in her bottom. Not only is this method of marking ■ a channel irregular, but if is altogether insufficient for the purpose intended. The channel of t!u v New Kiver winds j in some places, and were a vessel to j be steered direct from buoy to buoy,! she most infallibly would, before long, ; find her way un to the tail of ti sand- j spit. Unless the plan of having a: double row of buoj'S is adopted, sub- j slant ial beacons, standing hi^h out of '■. the water, should be erected ou tiiej prints of ii 1 1 these banks or reels. I Shortly after entering the New River Harbor, tho master of a vessel, or whoever happens to be in charge, sees before him a forest of sticks, quite sufficient to puz/Je the brains of any one but the man who stuck them up, and even he would find great difficulty in steering by their guidance in thick weather. Nor is there in the New River a tide beacon, and consequently no pilot is able to say, with any degree of certainty, whether he can put. the vessel lie may be in charge of alongside the ! Invercargill Jetty. Five wrecks may be seen at the present time in the New River, namely, the Oscar, Guiding Star, Moulez'-ima, North Star. Content [driven from her moorings], and lioiudee ['got confused among the above-mentioned sticks]. With refer-

enco to tlio .Bluff Harbor, the first buoy showing the channel has drifted iVoni tlio starboinl side, on which it was originally placed, to tlio port side goin£ in ; tin: second one has disappeared altogether from the scene. No billys have been placed on the port hand going in. although he would be a bold man who should say they were unnecessary. There is one Imoy inside, at the upper end of the Harbor. The channel, as it is now marked, is difficult and dcnujcroKs to find, and it is quite probable that, whilst vainly searching for buoys, or sjme other mark lo guide him, the pilot in charge will comfortably run his ship ashore.

There is only one buoy outside the Heads, between the liluff Land and Dog Island spit. One or two more arc necessary to show the continuation of the banks.

"When in our youthful days we look up a book of shipwrecks, we did so under the impression that our taste for the horrible would be gratified by reading of some tempest more terrible "than all his tribe" — of the way in which miserable mariners dropped into the huge green surges and were drowned, or could only consider themselves safe from death after undergoing an unlimited amount cf hardship. They manage these tilings differently in New Zealand. Given a good ship, a fair wind, and a saiooth sea, and captains or pilots will persist in finding the way on shore, takiug their ships with them, instead of being at the trouble of lowering the clingy and

going in the usual and. rational manner.

The question we are discussing is one of vital importance to the prosperity of Southland. Justly or unjustly, her harbours are gaining an unenviable notoriety, and common prudence suggests that strict enquiries should be made into the causes which have operated to make two of the finest ports in the Middle Island of New Zealand stink in the nostrils of shippers and shipowners. There is no use in mincing the matter. You hear the fact proclaimed on all hands, and now that the shipments to Southland are likely to increase to an enormous extent, it is high time that some action should be taken in the matter. One thing is certain —the Pilot staff of the Province is not equal to the demands made upon it; besides which, as we have before shown, the New River and Bluff Harbours have neither of them been surveyed and buoyed in a manner at all equal to the requirements of the case. When these two defects have been remedied, and when it shall have become the practice to hold a strict and searching enquiry into the circumstances surrounding each mishap, and mete out punishment wherever it may be deserved, these harbors will no longer be spoken of as little better than traps. This subject should receive the earliest and most assiduous attention of the Government. It is a matter that will brook of no del a) —a matter in which expense should be altogether a secondary consideration. It is difficult, under the circumstances, to fix the blame in any one instance on the right shoulders, and captains must for the present console themselves with the reflection, as they run the gauntlet of the New River or Bluff Harbor, that if misfortune overtakes them and their ships, they will at all events be wrecked in good eo;np any.