Never-ending Battle With The Bar

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 February 1928, Page 17 (Supplement)

Never-ending Battle With The Bar

IN the battle between Dame Nature and the engineers, the for- ■ mer may be put down as an easy winner on points. The record of the bar harbours of the West Coast is one of cjispouragemerd, but not dismay. In the early days, Nature seemed to carry oh her work of destruction in a spirit of reyenge, possibly for the disturbance of her river banks, for cutting away her virgin forests, and for sinkiiig holes and putting in drives to get at her secret treasures of gold and coal. In consequence, she retaliated by bursting up fh.e best-laid schemes of jjieiubers of the Institute of Civil Engineers to protect the towns of Greymouth, Hokitika, and Westport from being washed away by floods; bpt, unfortunately, these towns suffered considerably at first, and large slices of land with houses and their contents went over the bar, result of experimental engineering in protective, works. ’