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New Zealand Herald, Volume X, Issue 2910, 27 May 1873, Page 3

To the Editor of the Ueeald. Sib, —I perceive by the telegraphic communications frain the Southern provinces, published in your Saturday's issue, the following from .I)uncdin :—" The Corporation have adopted a memorial, setting forth that the Water-works Company have failed to properly supply the city, and asking the General Assembly to repeal those clauscs in the Act which empower the committee to levy rates, and also to repeal the Provincial Ordinance authorising guarantee. It is proposed to proceed at once to ereot new works.—Dunedin, Friday, 8 p.m." As the gentlotnau who was engaged, in the construction of the Dunedin Water-works is now in Auckland, I think it would be highly desirable that information should be afforded by hiin to the City Council, as well us to the inhabitants of Auckland, as to the method which was adopted for supplying the city of Duncdin with water ; and also as to tfee cause, or supposed cause, of the present, failure in the supply, necessitating the erection of new works. As the Dunedin Water-works are, I believe, what are commonly called "gravitation works," I cannot understand how this failure could have occurred, unless some error has been made, at the outset, in calculating the requisite size and thickness of the maius and piping. Should this surmiso be correct, it will show the City Council and the ratepayers of Auckland the absoluto necessity for the most careful investigation by an experienced hydraulic engineer of the whole of the data connected with the supply of this city by means of gravitation works. Nothing less than an accurate survey

of tho line proposed for the piping aui " flaming" from tho Nihotopu to t.ho Sy-mouds-street reservoir, to bo accompanied by tho requisite plans and sections obtained by carefully levelling, showing the proposed fluming, aqueducts, tunnels, cuttings, and embankments along tho proposed line, can give an engineer reliablo (lata upon which to base lu» calculations as to the size of the pipes, and as to all other matters, nnd thus enable him to form a reliable estimate of the cost of the works. A merely personal inspection of the ground is utterly insufficient for this purpose. —X am, &c., FREDS. S. I'iiPPKIiCORNE. Auckland, May 21, 1873.