THE KILMOG LANDSLIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2511, 30 April 1902, Page 59

THE KILMOG LANDSLIP.

By De F. Tetjby King.

'AN INTERESTING SIGHT.

(See Illustrations elsewhere in this issue.) Happening to be detained at Evansdale some days ago between two trains, I paid a hasty visit to the scene of the recent landslip at Kilmog, and it appears to me co well worth journeying to see while it is ©till fresh that I have made some notes of •what I saw, heard, and pieced together regarding the catastrophe. After leaving Evansdale the Main North road winds up the steep eastern face of the gorge, which narrows and deepens as one proceeds. Half a mile or more beyond the township the gorge is at its narrowest and deepest, and one or two farm cottages on the opposite side appear perched precariously. The road is cut out of the solid rock; some hundreds of feet below winds a stream, and from it the cliffs rise almost perpendicularly, forming a ravine, across which in places one could almost shoot a rabbit. Several slight slips involving the road are passed, and then one comes to a hundred yards or more of the roadway .where for years a gradual slipping of a portion of the hillside downwards en masse •towards the xa-yine has been taking plaoe3?rom time to time inequalities of the- road have been made up and repaired, while willows have been planted alongside its outer margin. It has been interesting to see the gradual descent and recessio.n of the willows as the moving ground has carried them with it. On reaching this section of the road the traveller now has to pick his way up the centre through slush overlying the metal, passing between banks of fresh yellow clay piled on either side to the height of several feet. On the right hand side a narrow roadway formerly wound up through a email farm belonging to Mrs Campbell, but this is now entirely blocked and obliterated with clay. Further on, by scrambling" up the ■bank, an entry to the farrr is gained, and here for the first time is realised the full extent of the slip. Formerly a slightly undulating " flat" of somo eight acres of ground in crop or grass, with garden, stack, and cow byre, stretched from the top of the bank to a line on the far side, where the main hill rises again precipitously. The farm cottage placed at the edge of this area near to the road still stands intact, but it is on a tiny oasis of green, hemmed in all rcund by bare yellow clay, which hae buried the rest of the flat to a depth averaging, perhaps, from 2ft to 10ft. Irregular blocks in somo places several feet high stand out of the general surface, reminding one of the tossed and tumbled appearance of a broken ice field on a small scale. The blocks are for the most part bare, but some show patches of grats from the hillside : bove, and there is a large area, in which f:.roadleaf and cabbage trees are seen lean--•ig at various angles. A few gooseberry rushes at one corner are all that remains < I the fruit garden. It is extremely difficult .•it first to grasp what has taken place, even nhen one has been told. v You are a.'-sured that there were no native trees on the flat prior to the slip, and that everything you now see before and around you has come from the face of the hill. You look in vain for any extensive bareness of the hillside, which is all bright green with the exception of a narrow vertical yellow scarp, which seems too inadequate to have any bearing on the matter. Presently, however, you are brought to realise that from this innocentlooking gap rome hundred thousand cubic yards of clay issued in the course of a few Louis from noon +ill evening. The following is an account of what took place, as given me by Mrs Campbell, who owns and livts on the farm, and by aMr Storey, who went to her assistance:—Three weeks ago, <m a dull, misty day, at about noon, Mrs Campbell noticed her cow running in a jianie across the paddock. Everything was more or leas enveloped in mist, but on look ing up to the hillside it was vaguely realised that something more than justifying the fright of the animal was taking place. Out of the hillside there had bulged and tumbled headlong a mass of half-plastic material, which subsided gradually on to the flat beneath. Relieved of all support, the verti cal face of clay some 40ft high now yielded to the continued pressure from behind, and mass after mass caved in and followed in the couise of the first slip, piling up behind and above it and pushing and thrusting it on in a slow, continuous movement across the flat. As each fresh mass fell in, a larger and larger cavern was formed, and the falling of blocks of hundreds of tons of clay into this caused "a dull boom as of distant thunder." or of "waves beating into p. hollow place under the cliffs." At one time the hollowing-out beneath became so great that in a single intact block there 2iarted from the rounded slope of the hillside topping the face an area of more than an acre, which, with its trees and shrubs erect, descended on to the moving mass ibelow. Slowly and majestically it wound its way across the far side of the flat, moving like a railway train slowly rounding a curve." Such was the impression com eyed to those watching the slip, in spite of its comparatively slow progress, and it was not ■unnatural tliat the mind should take more account of the irresistible force and continuity of the movement than of its octual rate. A mountaineer might have eaid that it was comparable to an avalanche, an lcefall, or a glacier; and though the lastnamed lacks visible movement, it affords •the truest simile in one respect. Like a glacier, the widening mns«. a* it spread out fanwise over the flat, either overwhelmed or pushed everything before it. Fencingposts seemed to offer almost no le-istance, :'nd, with their wires attached, were borne along in front: and oven plough-chains and swingle-trees were carried on for a chain or more as part of the terminal moraine i;\ T o stream of water preceded or flowed from jj- trader tho mass: it was a solid or pla«tic ?bSandslip, driven on from behind. Advancing w at. an easy walking pare, it tlneatoned to eweep away the house and carry it into ll>e xavine- beyond the road, and would have Hone £O had the house not fortunately been Jbiiilt on a slight rise. This inequality of {the ground caused the advancing fiout to Jclivide into three —one stream passing north jof- the house, another filling the road leading down to the main highway, while a fthird found its ivay farther south. The liighway coon became entirely blocked, and as more and more clay came down /the outer portions were tluust over into ■the ravine. The homestead waa now cut off from all outside communication, but before this took place neighbours had

which she wa» engaged in milking, while the stream cf clay was closing in behind her. Night was coming on. and no one could even hazard a guess as to what state of matters the morning would reveal. The whole portion of the hillside, which had been slipping for years, might have sunk into the ravine, or the scarp above might have continued to belch forth its masses of clay throughout the night. The bewildering confusion and mist rendered it impossible to ascertain precisely what had been taking place, and it was not until the next day that the situation was clearly realised. I had no time to visit the head of the slip, but I understand that beyond and above the scarp -was a kind of blind lagoon or swamp, which during the long-continued wet weather must have thoroughly soaked the clay and brought about the catastrophe. The pluck and spirit of Mrs Campbell, whose 6inall farm has been almost ruined, is best conveyed in her comment on the proeeseion of the trees: — "It was wonderful. It would have been a grand sight to watch but for the pity of it." Her greatest anxiety was expressed when she^said: "I wish I could have saved enough of the stack for the winter."