NEW ENTRANCE TO OTAGO HARBOR. (From the Daily Times, Oct. 20.)

Otago Witness, Issue 570, 1 November 1862, Page 5

NEW ENTRANCE TO OTAGO HARBOR. (From the Daily Times, Oct. 20.)

Several of the pilots Lave to-day been engaged in sounding the entrance to the harbor and the lower chauiitl, and in placing buoys upon the channel, which is now found to be most convenient for shipping, the work being facilitated by the employment of the Samson, tho harbor launch, and the pilot boats For some time past considerable difficulty had been experienced by the pilots in bringing vessels of an ordinary draught of water up the channel which had hitherto been the one in common use. It gradually became closed in by the formation of a sandy ridge, which latteily became so great an impediment to the fair-way as to make the grounding; of vessels at a particular point a circumstance of rather frequent occurrence. Fortunately, as the sand tended to fill in the channel towards the one beach, it withdrew from the north bank of the channel, and a fine clear fair-wa> has now been forme'], greater in depth and straight ■■ in its course than the one formerly used. Its m-'rimfhn depth at about dead low water is eighteen feet and, though of no extraordinary width it is well defined, and is now marked by buoys, so as to lender it a most easy passage to the entrance of what is known as the cross channel. At high water it shuuhlliiue a dep'h of from twentv-foiir to twentysix feet. Yesterday, before hall' tide, the Time and Truth, drawing aft ov< i nineteen feet, came through it easily. To a vessel >".iteiing it is considerably to the northward or starb >.ud of the old channel, and is distinctly marked by two large white buoys on the the starboard side, ait-l a chequered buoy on the port side, the latter buoy being placed on the northern extremity of the ridg j which lias lately formed. The bhek buoys on the south side remain as they were, there still being a narrow channel close by them, and vessels of eleven or twelve feet of water being still able to olear the rid a-, which runs across, and not in the direction of the tlinuvay.

According- to the st itement of those who have been intimate with the diameter of the harbor for a number of years, the channel four or five years ago was situated in exactly the saino line as it now is, and at different parts of it vessels of over a thousand tons huve lain at anchor in safety and with a sufficient depth of water. On the outer bar the soundings showed little or no change to have taken place. In the channel proper there is an average depth, at low water,of from eighteen to twenty feet, .extending northwards from the extremity of a ridge which runs out from the headland, and which gives only a depth of fifteen and sixteen feet. The guides for entrance over this bar are two white beacons placed on the bluff which fronts the entrance, and once over the bar it is a straight course to the new channel, which, as hns been slid, is well defined, more in the track both of the tide and of a leading wind, and is altogether an improvement upon the old channel, which may now be considered to be so much altered as not to be reommended for vessels of more than a light or very rdinary draught of water.