RECLAMATION WALL COLLAPSED. Subsidence of Forty Feet of the Structure.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 130, 28 November 1885, Page 4

RECLAMATION WALL COLLAPSED. Subsidence of Forty Feet of the Structure.

About a fortnight ago we referred at length to the efforts which had been made to bjleter up the railway reclamation wall by means of two concrete buttreese?, and the unavoidable stoppage of these operations owing to a serious change in the condition of the wa'l, which, dm ing the night of the 18fch inst , panic perceptibly about it* centre, whilst the earth, 20 feet in dep'h, which had been filled in behind the wall, had disappeared entirely, and the only reasonable conclusion was t'r.at it had gone li^ht through the structure, At interval* of about twenty yards on either side of the subsiding portion of the wall two gipng cracks were di-covered extending liyhfc acrope the mason' y, and affording ample evidence that the intermediate eec tion was falling in. Uredging opeiaMons which had been ranied out on ihe seaward f-ide of the wall in order to provide a good foundation for the buttresses, were imme diately suspended, many persons being of opinion that it had tended considerably towards weakening the wall This whs of c >ur<?e done under direction of the Harbour Board Engineer (Mr McGreuor), who also had several hundied tons of stone tipped into the hole excavated by the dredge near where the wall showed f-igns of weakness. Aftei this had been done, the Priest m -in dredge was again brought into use, and fur ther dredging wa*doneabout 20ft away from the wall, the ohjrict being to plant one of the buttie^ses there, and fill in the space between it and the wall with concrete. As the work proceeded it was found that the piles which were sunk to the sandstone rock (or which were supposed to have baen *-ur<k that far), to support the foundations of the wall, had fallen outward, und, one by one, to tho number of 19, they weie picked up by the dredger. They are certainly not in such good condition as mig* t have been expected. Indeed, it is apseried that the iron .'■hces on the end of the piles do not pre-ent the appearance of having been driven into rock anywhere. ]n the meantime, woodwork had worked a passage through the wall below low- water mark, and one day u large stingaree found it-* way through the wall and was captured on the shoreward side by several boys The obvious conclusion wn* that the foundation of the wall had been washed away for come twenty feet or more, and that the over hanging portion might be expected to cave in at any moment. The first un favourable weather so fir as work in connection v»ith this mishap whh concerned set in yesterday afternoon, with a strong breeze from the north east, «i h a great ri-e and fall in the tide^. La'e in the afternoon the wall showed signs of further collapse and about midnight a portion of the ponderous structure, about 200 feet from the Q>een street Wharf end, di^ap peared from view. An inspection of thf wrtck th'f morning showed that the wall for between 35 and 40 feet in length had pubsded, the solid masonry having: in paces been broken in two. On the wes'ern side there were numerous craekp extending over about 2'> feet of the wall left standing and on the eastern side of the gap theie were two large cracks running acroi-p the masonry, one of them, situated about 40 feet from the br9ak, being open about 5J inches, whilst tne intermediate section of the wall had sunk several ftet, and was evidently almost ready to follow the portion that had previously sunk. The missive I woodwork which ran alongside of the wall, and which had been fastened through the ma-onry with great bolts of iron, and also a tramwny running over the top of the wall, were wrenched into a variety of form*, and showed the threat force that had been at work. Purinsr the day a large number of people visited the scene of wreckage, and Forae very warm arguments were indulged in by select assemblies of contractors as to whether the design, the contractor, or the Engineer, were at fault, or most at fault, for the mwbap. Mr Fallon, the cont» actor, in a letter written to refute ihe asj-ertiona made by the Harbour Board Engineer saye :- "The point I cannot undeis'and is that a gentleman of hh (Mr McGregorV) standing, with the plans of the wall at his set vice, •hould deliberately dig a grave thirteen feet below thei-e m<»B3ive four dationp, and 'hen wonder the wa I starts to elide into it If the Harbour Board had vofed a sum of money for the purpose of demolishing the wall, I doubt whether the Engineer could have hit upon a better scheme."

History of ihe Wajl. An erroneous opinion prevails that the j Auckland Harbour Board is to a large extent reepon^ible for the reclamation wall bungle Jt is bad enough to give that body credit for those errors of « hich it is actually answerable, without putting upon ittheonue of the huiie mistake now co prominently brought before the public. The wall wa* built by the General Government, and the design was supp ied by a Geneial Government office-, it was ereoted without any reference whatever to the Haibour Board, and neither that body, nor any of its officer* had anything to do with it. beyond that when the reclamation behind it wa-t approaching completion, and ihe wall showed signs of weakness, the Board considered it wwe, in order to complete the reclamation, that some measures should be taken to strengthen the structure The Engineer ror the Board accordingly designed buttresses and in order *o enable them to be placed in position it was neces sary that the mud should be dredged from the outeide of the wall. This was done and the effect, as has been already stated, has been to cause part of the wall to come down. We understand that when the plans of the wall were first out the then resident engineer (Me Stewart) objected to thep-ofioealaon the ground of non stability, and further that this objection has bee?» placed on no >rd al Wellington. The engineer of the Harbour Board ( Mr Macdonald) al-o made objection to ihe plans of the whII on the ground of insufficient strength. The cost of the wall was over £20.000.—" Star," November 25.

During the past four weeks the Bank of New Zealand bought £15,000 worth of gold »t Hokitika. The Appeal Court at Wellington has decided that the Publio Trustee has no power to sell freehold land in an intestate estate.