HUTT ROAD MAIN

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 74, 25 September 1923, Page 8

HUTT ROAD MAIN

HOW CAN IT BE FOUND WITHOUT DIGGING?

CHANCE EOR RIVAL-'DIVINEKS.

It was reported ;in "The Post" last 'week that the city water main between Petone an£« Wellington Is lost, in the sense that ;though.:,it: is..,known that .it follows generally the.Hutt-road, nobody could dig a hole with, more-than a hazard of striking Ihs. pipe.'. It.;is evidently, a job for a water, diviner,'-and' it may be asked whether the city "will call upon some qualified exponent;, of a practical mystery to save a lpt;of*pick-and-shovel ,-work.

Many peojple, perhapgrnost,-disbelieve in water-divining'; JlvCjl sa-y;,it. isn'.t done; ■but even they, when;the sceptical spasm has passed,-admit that there is something convincing about the evidence quoted in favour of the "dowser" and his : twig. . »If, as_ is generally averred, running water- must" "be^preWrit; -to" "Be" discovered by the bent stick, the pipeline is full tif "it: •-Unfortunateiy-the indications may be interfered with by the presence of: uncharted streams underground, dud to the drainage of, the'scarp that overlooks the road. There is, however, another type of diviner.who might be invited 'to tackle the'problem, and who, it is authoritatively-hinted, would have a good-chance of success: H That is the electrical expert, with, his little batteries and ; wires. Telephone,,, experts Lave an uncanny facility, in » hunting down wandering currentei When they euspect a leakage, tljey'. drive' a fairly big current;through jt, and; follow it "with a small listening-in apparatus that is not altogether unrelated'to' "wireless." .;! . .-.--.■■ - ,-; - ..■ >

If some of; these ppople plotted with the City Council to turn the water-main into an Electrical ..conductor, they ■should be ; able "to- detect it with reasonable eise. In faefrj some electrical experts 6ay 7there is no "doubt about it -at all, andf that much more, difficult things have been done.

But whether the City Council -is prepared to stajrt -an electrical trouble hunter at one end and a water diviner at the other-and compare their rales of travel and success in tracing the unknown zigzags of the pipe'depends oh another unknown factor—the imaginative jower of the.'council, „....'...'. "-... ' „. .