The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. In the cause of Truth and Justice we strive. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1871.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 889, 18 November 1871, Page 2

The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. In the cause of Truth and Justice we strive. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1871.

The subject of harbour improvements at Timaru lias been long under the consideration of the local board of works, and the feasibility of construct, ing a breakwater in that roadstead forms the subject of a report by Mr Carruthers, the newly appointed Engi-neer-in-Chitf of the colony. The report possesses a certain local interest, as it offers an explanation of the causes which lead to the deposit of sand and shingle on a beach, and of those that cause the sea to cut down the beaches. After premising that the prevailing winds at Timaru come from the south-east, he shows that the trend of the coast between the Waitarigi river and Timaru, and for some miles to the north is somewhat east of north, so that the seas break on the beach, not at right angles, but obliquely at an angle of about fifty degrees, and it is to this obliquity that the motion of the shingle is due. A similar process has been going on here at Westport, only that the prevailing winds are from the south-west. When a wave coming from the south-west breaks on the beach, it carries the shingle forward with it, the retreating wave, howover, does not recede on the same path, but runs down the slope of quickest descent. Each piece of shingle therefore travels northward. Mr Carrruthers condemns the pro-. posal to run out a breakwater, ae it would arrest the passage of ahingle from the south, while to leeward the

shingle would be carried on to the north, and the sea beach be cut away so as to endanger all properties in the immediate neighbourhood. What Mr Carruthers herein states would bo the result of such a work, has been practically confirmed by the denudation of the north beach here at Westport. The extension of the north spit acting as a breakwater has arrested the shingle travelling northwards, and to leeward the beach has been denuded by the prevailing southeasterly direction of the waves. Recently the spit has been carried away, giving the shingle free vent, and the result is that the beach to leeward is now being quickly restored, and may gradually resume nearly its original shape.