NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16741, 23 December 1914, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The Australian authorities’ request that tho New Zealand Government should send a steamer to assist in tho search for a trawler, the Endeavour, which is long overdue at Melbourne from Macquarie Island, is a reminder of the sinister maritime record associate ed with that lonely and gale-swept subAntarctic island far to the south of our southernmost coast limit. Down in the “Roaring Fifties” where Macquarie lies the most terrific seas ever encountered by sailors run with an uninterrupted send that completely circles the globe in those latitudes. Ship can tains

who have visited this penguin isle say that the rollers there are moro formidable than any met with rounding Gape Horn, which is saying a good deal. These seas have 'been known to overwhelm vessels completely or to sweep a whole watch overboard. A littloover twenty years ago a small steamer, the Kakanui, which had been despatched from the Bluff on a voyage to Macquarie to relievo some penguin-oil hunters, foundered with all her passengers and crew on her return trip. The ketch Gratitude was returning from the island to the Bluff when a huge sea swept over her and took with it tho man at the wheel and tho two other sailors on deck; they were never seen again. A passenger on the vessel at tho time was the late Mr A. Hamilton, curator of the Dominion Museum, whose son recently spent twelve months on Macquarie as one of the scientific party of an Antarctic expedition.

Like most of the vessels which have traded to Macquarie Island in tho pen-guin-oil and sealing business, the Gratitude at Inst “left her bones” there, as the sailors’ expression goes. Another vessel wrecked there, this not long since, was the schooner Jessie Niccol. On one occasion the Jessie Niccol, on a voyage from Bluff to Macquarie, was hove-to for twenty-five days, and only tho use of her oil-bags saved her from being overwhelmed. On that passago she just sighted Macquarie, but there was no chance of landing, tho surf was so high, and so there was nothing for it but to return to the Bluff. Macquarie is tryly a ship graveyard. In the early days a ship called the Lord Nelson was lost there, and another, the Eagle, went to pieces in a small bay now called Eagle Bay; her crew had to remain on the desolate island for about two years, and some of them died there. Two barques, the Caroline and tho Countess Cimeuto, and the schooner Buoclouch, were also wrecked on tho rocky coast. A record this that goes to explain the dislike of ship captains and oivners for Macquarie voyages. The Melbourne vessel, of course, may only have broken down, and for the sake of tho twenty-two moil on board it is to be hoped that tho search for her may Ixs successful, but “overdue from Macquarie Island” has an ominous sound.

Classes in typography are conducted •at tho Christchurch Technical College and a booklet filled with specimens of the students’ handicraft which comes from tho College authorities is a piece of work that thoroughly justifies tho existence of the classes and makes a fine testimonial to the soundness of tho instruction given by the practical men in charge. In tho classes, states tho seventh annual report which prefaces the volume, there are twenty-eight students, of whom sixteen are in the senior division, and the senior course of instruction is an adaptation of the system adopted by the International Typography School, of Chicago, and recently introduced into the* Central Technical Collego, Sydney. The subjects embrace all the branches of the art of composing type, and that it is an art the handsomo ixiges of tho booklet carry abundant proof. Tho sample bookcovers, titlc-i>ages, programmes and advertising work aro examples of thought and taste in design and proportion, nnd there is some artistic work displaying a cultivated appreciation of the delicacies of what qro known to printers as tone harmony and colour harmony. Those classes are not only a benefit to the young men following tho typographical trade, but are an advantage to the employer since they increase tho efficiency of tho craftsman and have an appreciable effect for the better on the product of the printinghouse.

The “ Sydney Morning Herald ” writer who informed his readers that an Australian is called a “foreigner” in New Zealand was a rather badly informed journalist. If Australians are really so described in any part of the Dominion it is probably more by way of a joke than anything else. Our cousins across tho Tasman Sea certainly do not seem to feel that they are “foreigners” when they come trooping across hero for their holidays, nor does an Australian worth his salt find himself barred from employment here bceauso he is fresh from tho Commonwealth. The number of capable Australian natives who hold important positions in Now Zealand, in the public service and in other walks of life, is perhaps even greater than the already long list of Ncsv Zealanders who find in Australia a happy and profitable field for their talents. There is the fullest social reciprocity between these islands and the island continent, and though the character and atmosphere of tho two countries present great differences, in essentials tho x>eoples are one. The Sydney writer might do worse than take a run across to these “ furrin lands” this summer and get acquainted with us.

Tho Wellington Harbour Board is a waterside body with a widespread reputation for energy and progres.sivencss, and that whatever it sets its hand to it does well is borne out by a glance through its Year Book for 1914-15, just to hand. Hie Year Book is a wellprinted and well-illustrated little volume of sixty-five pages containing a conveniently arranged mass of information about Port Nicholson and the varied activities of tho Harbour Board, all the local data, in fact, that a seagoing visitor to the i>ort requires to know. As an “ inquire within ” for the ship captain and tho merchant it is a model for Harbour Board publications, and considered as an advertisement for the port it is certainly attractive. It is particularly well supplied with maps and plans and there is a chart of the harbour and tho entrance, with soundings corrected up to September of this year, and the textual information is further supplemented by good illustrations from photos of the wharves and shipping, tho wool stores, tho Board’s engineering workshops, and all the waterfront equipment for dealing with tho trade of the largest distributing centre in tho Dominion. The Board, according to the Year Book, has some important reclamation and store-build-ing work on hand, but even larger undertakings aro contemplated. For one tiling the Board intends to coll tenders for a new whai-f 948 ft long for tho largest ocean-going steamers visiting Wellington ; this wharf is to be built to tho east of the King’s wharf. Another large wharf is to go ux> at the To Aro side, and a new berth with a length of nearly 600 ft is to be provided on the city front for Wellington-Lyttelton

ferry steamers. The Board seems to be keeping pace very well with the increasing traffic of its port.

From the Otago Harbour Board also comes a neat booklet of general memoranda. Dunedin’s harbour and its capacity for shipping, its wharves and cargo handling arrangements, and information as to port regulations and duos, tides, distances, and so on, are conveniently set forth. Two pages, we note, aro usefully devoted to directions regarding help in case of drowning and to first aid to tho injured. By way of illustrations there aro photographs of the Dunedin wharves, Port Chalmers and Otago dock, and there is a good chart of tho entrance to tho harbour with the latest soundings. During tho last few years the Otago Harbour Board has greatly improved, by an energetic dredging policy, the entrance channel and the Victoria Channel leading to Dunedin, and its engineer claims that the depths at tho entrance and in the main channel as far as Deborah Bay “ are now greater than tho entrance depths of tho other main ports of the Dominion.”