THE WAIMATAITAI BEACH.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 1 May 1926, Page 11

THE WAIMATAITAI BEACH.

To tlio Editor of tho. “Timaru Herald.” ' ,: Sir,—,'When 1 expressed doubts as" to' any lraginent of the framing' ■of the steamer “William Miskin,” wrecked'oil the AVaimataitai beach in 1868, being, as positively, asserted, still in,existence' there after 58 years of disintegration •by sea action on a constantly. 'Shifting, shingle ■ beach, the general-purport , of my letter was to specially draw tlio attention of the thinking' public to the nature and extent of tho sea action on, and erosion of, that beach, as caused, by tlio harbour works, and I then had no intention of tickling.“ The Writer of the Sentence” under the ribs to induce him to trip “the light fantastic foe” to my unintentional piping. The fact of him doing so, so nimbly, is, however, very complimentary to me, 1 and is an indication that ,my rational' criticism covered more than a'-modicum of truth;'... The omission, as complained of by him,' of the word “framing” from tho quotation of his article, -was pure inadvertance, and certainly ;was not. done; in any way to create any false impression. I might also romark, in, reply to liis assertion that I slandered the steamer'by “quoting some.'infantile 1 recollection. of hearsay about the steamer’s plates,” that I received full and authentic 1 information from m,y father, who examined the wreckage shortly' after the disaster occurred, and as he did not depart from this life until I was about 26 . years of ago I naturally had plenty of opportunities of discussing the matter with him. Your j correspondent certainly was not present j at the time of . tho wreck nor afterwards to identify any particular fragment. His statement regarding the rate and amount of shift of the beach at different times, to use his own words, is also absurdly wrong, and if he would scale some reliable map, ho;} would find, to his intense amazement, 1 that the north end of that beach has , been eroded a quarter of a mile froni I when: that steamer was -wrecked m | ■IB6B. I was born and bred at the ; back of, and spent a considerable per- | tion of my life upon that beach, anti, as.regards that now' historical fragment : of. unknown quality arid' identity v whip.; j should be endowed to; the limaru Museum, I am still inclined to tlunx .that, after- 58 years ofybeaclr'erosion, ho'has discovered a “mart’s nest” among tho dumped old iron refuse, and not, as he ■so fondly imagines, a rehc; of the “William' Mishin”,’— I am,': ' tC '’ A. Ji - MORRIS.