“OLD MAN” FLOOD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22545, 12 April 1935, Page 13

“OLD MAN” FLOOD

TO THE EDITOE

Sib,—ln your issue of Tuesday there appears a letter signed “ Dunedinite,” which treats with some assumption of authority concerning the Molyneux River and its floods. To refer, however, to the flood of 1878 as an “old man ” flood shows that the writer does not quite know what he is talking about. The term “old man” flood really refers to a flood of the misty past, before the white man came to_ Otago. Old Maoris informed early white settlers along the river banks of-this grhat flood, which was dubbed by the whites “old man” after the “old man ” or big kangaroo of Australia. According to the Maoris, the flood of 1878 would be to the “pld man” flood as a city ; gutter to Niagara. Many good judges consider that the flood of 1919 was equal to that of 1878 in height of water, although not' in destructiveness, because the country was better prepared for it. Things: of the past look bigger, especially with the old men, and it may well be that the Maoris exaggerated. But to speak of the flood of 1878 as an “ old man ” and of " the three previous bridges ” to the new structure —well, when one deals with historical subjects accuracy should be studied before aught else.—l am, etc., Native Son. Balclutha, April 10.