WARNING AGAINST EFFECTS OF DEFORESTATION.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3133, 4 September 1922, Page 8

WARNING AGAINST EFFECTS OF DEFORESTATION.

BISK TO RIVER NAVIGATION. Several officers of the Forestry Department have just returned from visits of inspection and investigation in various parts of the North Island, and a statement based on their reports indicates "the necessity for calling an immediate halt in the indiscriminate attacks being made on the forests of the Dominion, especially on the mountains, where the trees break the rainfall and allow the water to soak into the earth instead of tearing clown the mountain, sides in torrents."

The statement says:— "The surest known way to produce Hood's is to see that the rainfall runs down hill over steep surfaces without having an opportunity to sink into the soil. This statement appeared recently in an article dealing with cause and effect when examining into the origin of devastating river Hoods in America. It holds good in every part of the globe, and has an exact parallel in the case of our own main rivers. All investigation into Hood statistics in the North Island over a period of years will show that this menace is increasing steadily and that we are rapidly approaching a Stage when navigable rivers will be no longer use! as such but will alternate between the danger points of serious depletion of water supply and disastrous torrents sweeping everything before them. "Had a special board of" engineering exi>erts been set up in the pioneering days to< formulate a policy of deliberate destruction towards our rivers and forests they could not have shaped things letter. River valleys have been swept bare of trees and the head-water forests carved into with an utter disregard of consequences. "When the natural sequence follows in the shape of raging Hoods, people wonder why it is that every year sees greater destruction wrought by this unleashed demon and i*aise a cry for protective banks .and similar measures, ignoring the fact that this particular trouble, like every other, must bo attacked at its source.

"Ignore this question a little ionge; and arrangements- may be confidently made to scrap the river steamers of the Wanganui and to' give up all hoi>e of navigating the AVaikato with barges and small craft. As a tourist attraction these rivers will practically cease to exist and will yearly become a greater terror to the denizens of the plains and coastal towns. This is not a scare picture but a. moral certainty proven many times over in all countries and all climes. "The remedy lies in immediately tackling the trouble at its source. The great central watershed of the' North Island must be zealously guarded from further denudation of its remaining forest cover. Not a tree should be cut from it without careful supervision and special danger points along the river valleys ehouM be reforested without delav.

"The kingpin of our remedial policy should be the protection and replacing of as much; of the destroyed natural cover as is practicable, thus regulating the distribution of rainfall: and this in the end will be found a cheap \rncc to pay for the safety of our national well-being." TOMB SECRETS OF OLDEST EGYPT. Exhibits which throw light on the history of ancient Egypt for stay-at-home Englishmen were on view lately in landon. Anyone could inspect these relics, which are some of the rewards gained by the British School of Archaeology in Egypt under the direction of Professor and Mrs Flinders Petrie during last winter.

Mrs Flinders Petrie explained to a Daily Chronicle representative that she acted as administrator. Under her direction were 200 workmen, brought from Upper Egypt. The chief concern is to proTi'de that "finds" shall betaken to the workers of the school and not sold surreptitiously. Baksheesh is. therefore, given for everything handed over, and the market price would be paid' by the travelling dealers is paid to the workmen for everything they dig up. There is quite a story attached to the First Dynasty relics, which were in use about 7000 years ago. About 20 years ago Professor Flinders Petrie had dug out the tombs of the eight kings. Ten years ago the workers of another party found a square of tombs which, they could not explain. The plan was shown to the leader of the British School, and 1 he noted the resemblance to the First Dynasty tombs.

This yean* the Pritisb party explored the site for themselves, and found the tombs were thosei of the courtiers l of these earliest kings. The bodies in the tomb were lying on their sides, knees to chin, and beneath the chins of one or two of them were copper knives, which are also to be seen and 1 wondered at.

Ktbnoloyirally, those skeletons arc likely to he of supreme interest. The UillcKt is over 7ft high. The smallest moamires only Ift. Court fools were not unknown oven in those shadowy davs of the world's history. Hut they often duplicated tin: functions of Pool and Keeper 1 of the Jewellery. A dwarf absconding with Court treasures would. of course, lie more easily traced than a man of normal stature. Needles found 1 beside some of the luir'ied women are thought to have belonged to court millineins. Knives and tools jind jars containing the remains of food were still lying hy the dead wlicn the exploring party liroke the silence of ceut'uries. ExuuisitelY carved ivory lions aire thought to have been pawns l in a game resembling chess. Little ebony cylinders covered with hieroglyphics acted as Konls when rolled over damp clay.

Strawberries wore sold in Vienna in .May at 1000 crowns apiece. The exchange value 1 o-day of this sum is about (id. and its purchasing power in Vienna is a little more, hut not much. Austrians, however, still think of 1000 crowns in terms of years ago, and iai.se their eyebrows at the idea of strawberries costing "forty guineas apiece." Mr Hatham Browne, of Workington. Cumberland (Eng.), must be the world's champion bricklayer. Ho has laid, without assistance, 700,000 bricks, and ha«s thus built practically singlehanded 1 the Oxford Theatre at Workington, which is 50ft high, 150 ft in length, and capable of seating 1 100 persons. It has taken him exactly two years to complete the 12 mam exterior and interior walls. A largo square marked on the ground, and measuring 150 ft by SOft. was his first view of the task. He was toW to build a theatre on those foundations, no matter how long it took him. That was in 15)10. When training for the world's .juvenile London-Brighton walk, hold in Whit-week. George Oswald Edwards, aged 10. achieved a line performance at Manchester. He walked 25 miles in ohrs smin 32scc.

While delirious, Evan J one**, aged 12, of Llangattock, near Crickhowell (Eng.), who had been suffering from pneumonia, swallowed a watch and chain. In trying to extract the articles a neighbor broke the chain. Later a doctor drew away the remainder of the chain and the watch, but the man died from suffocation.