ARAPUNI REPORT

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 48, 25 August 1930, Page 10

ARAPUNI REPORT

EXPERT ARRIVES

PROFESSOR P. 6. HORNELL

AN EMINENT ENGINEER

Professor P. G. Hornoll, of Stockholm, Sweden, who Has been requested by the Government to report upon the position at Arapuni and the means of overcoming the present serious trouble at that hydro-eleetrie development, arrived by the Makura this morning. With him came Mr. P. W. Werner, as assistant engineer and secretary.

Professor Hornoll, interviewed by a "Post" representative this morning, said that he was, of course, unable to say anything regarding his plans for the examination of the Arapuni development nor of the probable time which the work would occupy. That Professor Hornell is an engineer.of tho widest experience—world-wido experience, in fact —was made clear by his recital of some of the main works and investigations with which he has been associated.

About 1900, said Professor Hornell, ho worked with an old friend of his, Professor Eichert, m tho organisation of a bureau of consulting engineers, the Vattenbyggnadsbyran, which grew from the then small staff of three or iour engineers to its present position of the largest firm of consulting engineers in Europe, with fifty graduated engineers and a staff of over eighty, with head office in Stockholm and a branch office in London. The firm specialised at the beginning in three main departments, water supply, canalisation, and water power development, which latter constitutes its main field of work. To these havo been added a department of communications, embracing harbours, canals, railways, etc. Its main activities were in Swe- , den, but its work had extended far ■ and wide, to Norway, Finland, Russia, Poland, the Far East, Greece and Bu- ■ mania^ Spitsbergen, Africa, and the Federated Malay States. From 1906 until 1929, said Profcssur Hornell, he- belonged for certain periods to the professorial staff of tho University of Technology, Stockholm, lecturing on hydraulic engineering, structural buildings and materials, and allied engineering subjects. In 1925 he became a professor of the same university, but resigned in 1929, as lecturing rendered difficult tho wider and more interesting work in Sweden and elsewhere. In 1901, in collaboration with Professor Richert, he worked out plans for a water power plant at Halvredsfossen, Norway, gaming an international prize, and in 1905 the first prize against about forty competitors for plans for an extension of the harbour of Gothenburg, and in 1902 the only prize awarded for a project of canalisation of Leningrad. WIDE BANGE OF EXPERIENCE. As he had said, the firm's activities came under several main headings, and though his position was at the head of ono particular section, practical consid- ! erations made it imperative that he . should attend to different classes of engineering, for on world-wide travels many points cropped up. To mention ' some of those widely-separated works, said Professor Hornell, there was a dam project at Vladivostock, which was j undor consideration before the war, ' which, however, was postponed on ac--1 count of the war; he was commissioned j Ito give consideration, under tho League of Nations, to the question of Danzig las a port for Poland; he acted as con- J ■ suiting engineer from 1922 or 1923 till j 1928 for tho erection of a power plant, ,of 70,000 k.w., at Volkov, Eussia, and on the completion of that work plans ( were undertaken for a 90,000 k.w. plant lat Swir. "As a matter of fact," ho ! added, "if I had not come here I would have had to leave for Russia in that connection the day after I left home for | New Zealand." In 1908, he continued, he was "over to China and Japan," and other little jaunts mentioned were five trips through the Suez Canal, three to Si--1 beria, and six over the Bosphorus. Ono of his commissions in the East, said Professor Hornell, was to inquire into the Cevelopment of the international port of Shanghai. . That work occupied two years, and the report was submitted to ;tn international commission in Shanghai in 1921, the representatives including those of Eugland, tho United States of America, France, Holland, and Japan; he himself was appointed as China's representative. Such work as this, he added, covered a rather wider scope than of engineering. In 1920 ho was appointed by the Swedish Government to take part in the preparatory work in the setting tip of the League of Nations Committee ou Communications and Transit. He is chairman of the League of Nations Committee on Water Power Development, and- tho representative of Sweden on the International Oder Commission, and two or three other committees instigated by the Leaguo of Nations.1 Yes, agreed Professor Hornell, his work took him here and there, with long distances between different places, and very ofton at very short notice, but one got used to that. On one occasion he had returned home to Stockholm after a considerable absence, to be ordered off that same afternoon to Eussia. Mrs. Hornell took it philosophically. "It's just as well," she said. "There will be no packing; you haven't unpacked yet." Tho news that he was to come to New Zealand had come to him by a telephone call from one of the newspaper offices to ask when he was leaving for New Zealand, whereupon the newspaper man

assured him that it was so, for they had received a message from "Wellington.

Professor Hornell and Mr. Werner will leave Wellington for Arapuni on Wednesday morning.