THE Otago Witness.

Otago Witness, Issue 568, 18 October 1862, Page 4

THE Otago Witness.

DUNEDIN, SATURDAY, OCTOBER IS, 1862.

A nusv scene has been presented for the last few days on the road by the beach to the Court House, hundreds of men being crowded like ants on the side and base of Bell Hill, all engaged in tumbling down the earth and stones of which the bill is composed, into the Bay. In doing this they have made the beginning of a work long meditated, long talked aoout and written about, but of which, this work now going on is the first actual commencement. It is not our present object to open up again the discussion as to whether Bell Hill should be sacrificed or preserved. The v inexorable logic of events " has settled the question in. a very simple way, by beginning its demolition, and it would therefore be worse than useless now to discuss the'question whether it ought to be cut away or not. We have rather to do with the great general scheme, towards the carrying out of winch the works now in progress are the first step. This scheme will of necessity take years to develops, and we hold therefore that any light that can be thrown upon it, shonld be stall times welcome.

The works at present in progress as already stated, are but the first instalment of the execution of a comprehensive plan, for the improvement of the harbor and the extension of the town. It U proposed at present to enclose a small portion of the beach frontage, about ten acres, but; the whole d<?si<vu contemplates ttio"lsuT[b:4iu T eonrG"out 100 acres, whiclT wiH"~ give the Government 54 acres of building sites to sell, besides affording them wharves and docks, which are also comprised in the scheme as set forth in a neat lithographic plan , a copy of which is now before us. It is intended to rnn out the street lines, and to sell the intervening spaces, leaving it to the purchasers to fill in or not as' may best suit their convenience. The idea is, that the sale of the ground will defray the cost of the works, and that the city and province will reap the gain of the advantage of docks and deep-water wharves. We should mention that it is contemplated to fill up portions of the work with the stuff dredged from the channels in the bay, anc that it is expected thus to carry on b;>th works, the extension of the town and the deepening of the harbor, at smaller cost than if oither wore to be commenced by itself. That this plan looks well upon paper cannot be denied, but there are some drawbacks to it, and it is well that these should be clearly seen and appreciated. In the first place, occurs the sanitary question. Tt has been stated, by medical men, that the effect of enclosing any considerable portion of the bench in front of the town, nms.t of necessity be to prejudicially affect the health of the inhabitants. It has been pointed out by them in letters to the press, that for a long time past the whole drainage of (he town, that is so far as the to\v:i has been drained at all, bus been poured on. lj this muddy beach, and that although, while exposed to the daily wash -of the tide, it may be comparatively safe, yet if enclosed and left to fester in the sun, it would breed a pestilence. To this of course the answer is made, that it is only proposed to enclose sninll portions at a time, and that each will bo speedily covered in with earth and ' built over. So far, the sanitary question may bo slid to 1)0 disposed of, and it may be taken as settled that the proposed town extension will not in any seriou>> degree aggravate the evils which are now ci all haiuWadmitted to exist for want of proper drainage of the city. The money question is mo;-e iliflicult to get over, it b, ju alreaclv stated, intended to make a smrll portion of the work good at a time, and then t:> soil the building allotments thus enclosed. These it is anticipated will fetch a very high figure, and so they undoubtedly will, but it is by no means "to be relied upon that they will fetch so groat a price as has been reckoned upon. A moment's consideration will show that the effect of running a fresh wharf frontage outside that already existing, must he to depreciate the old in favor of the new. But when the said new frontage has been bought and occupied, works will again be commenced beyond' for the running of another frontage further into the bay .; and the process of depreciation will be -again repeated ; and so on, until the whole phii has boon carrier! out, and the real outside wharf frontage has been reached. It cannot therefore be roasombly expected that business men will eagerly buy up these successue frontages at the full price that they would be willing to give, supposing they had a guarantee that the frontage would be preserved.

But if we take for granted that the pan can, as f.ir as calculation may be depended upon, be successfully carried out, there will yet Remain the question, whether the docks, that it is proposed to construct, can be made to pay, and this must depend entirely upm the trade of the poit, and the facilities .for vessels coming up to Dtinedin. We thus work round to the old subject of the improvement of the harbour itsr'lf. The bearing of 1 these town extension works upon the improvement of the harbor has been variously regarded by different people. In the one cage it is looked upon that the works, by affordiu" a ready means of disposing profitably of the stuff dredged from the channels, will facilitate the work of deepening and improving the harbor. On the other hand it has been ur.red that the enclosure of so considerable an area as 100 acres, must, by diminishing the quantity of water to (low into and out ot the harbor's mouth at each tide, diminish, the force of the "s.our" which is in every tidal harbor the chief agent in keeping the entrance clear. This latter fear seems to bo found on a rather superficial view of the subject ; and those who advance it appear to forget that 100 acres form a very small and scarcely appreciable area when compared to the entire surface of a harbor twelve xmles lonar, and averaging a mile and a half in width, which would give an area ot 1 eighteen square miles, or 11,520 acres. We do not quote these figures as correct, for we have not the measurements at hand to refer io,&. They are, however, sufficient to show thaefflie reclamation of 100 acres could scarcely be expected to have any serious effect in diminishing the » scour," the more especially as simultaneously with the progress of the reclamation, the dredging of the harbor would proceed. Tne example of Wexford Harbor has been quoted to show the danger of jliminishiiijj the scour, but the cases are hardly parallel. Wexlbrd Harbor had an area at high water of. 14,270 acres, of which 10,621 were uncovered by the fall of the tide. About 3,000 aores of

this uncovered portion were reclaimed, and the pcour was, as had been predicted, diminished. But it {.•? only f lopostd to diminish the ti ial area of Otii^o II irbor iy abut 100 a:rci, and so the comp-uisson with \\\. i \l'.>rd can hardly be sustained. Moreover the cases of Wexford and Otago harbors, although in some respects similar, are not by any meins identical. In Wexford Ilai'hortlh* difficulty arises not from the thdllowness of the entrance mouth, for that is scoured to a depth of 50 or 60 feet, but to the formation of a large b'ir outside, about a mile ofi", on which there is only eleven feet depth at hi^h water. This bar is supposed to be formed by the deposit from the river Slaney, of which Wexford Harbor is the estuary. Here there is a remarkable difference between the two harbors for Otago Harbor receives the waters of no river but tbe '-Water of Ltith," which can scarcely be supposed to have much effect one way or another. Moreover the difficulties of Otago Harbor lie not in any bar outside, for there is plenty of Jeep water, but in the formation of obstructions in the channel, and in the general shallovvne-.=; of the upper haibor; and these ase evils which as far as we can sco can only be dealt with by dredging. The eire of this important subject will devolve upon the local Marine Board, as soon as such board shall be constituted, and we can only trim that no considerations of niggardly economy will be allowed to deter the Board from s.-t-ting to work in earnest.

THE DUNSTAN ESCORT.

THE NEW DIGGINGS AT TH!] TEVIOT. (FRO3I OUR TUAI'CKA COUKBSPOXOKXT.) Tuapeka, Oct., 14. This evening the escort arrived from the Dunstan under the cliarse of Inspector Morton. The journey was accomplished iv two days, and uith great apparent ea^v, horses and men arri-.inpr hc-ro in excellent order and condition. The amount of gold brought down from the Dunstan is G.'240 oz. 19 dwts., and from the Te\iot, 115 ox. 8 dwts. The amount from th° Teviot was handed to Mr Morton by Mr lteilly, who it appppr-. had taken the in exchanixe for goods. Gold was offering freely at the Teviot for 70s, per 0/ , without any chance of its bfing disposed of. At present there is a considerable population settled there, which will uivVmbtclly increase as the winter sets in. Ii the meaniime the miners are but indifferently supplied v,ith provisions, and there are no facilities for the sale of gold. As the place increases in importance it will no doubt attract the attention of one or otiier of the banking institutions of the colony. ARRIVAL OF THE ESCORT. The Escort from the gold fields arrived in town yesterday afreroon, bringing the following quantities of go! J :—: — ozs dwts. Dunstan 62-10 19 Tu.ipcka 34G4 10 TVtutahuna 11,19 5 Woolshcd 500 0 Teviot llj 8 11.180 2