PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 127 
deal of work will have to be carried out by the municipalities in 
the extension and improvement of their present arrangements. 
If this work is carried out piecemeal, as at present, it will be 
almost impossible to incorporate it afterwards in general schemes 
for applying the separate system. The author advocates an 
intelligent foresight being now exercised, and, where possible, 
complete schemes for sewerage being prepared, so that, as far as 
possible, all future work could be carried out on permanent lines. 
By this means it would be possible to avoid, in a great measure, 
the heavy loss experienced at home in carrying out new sewerage 
works, of having either to discard or radically alter existing 
sewers. As the methods of purification best suited to this colony 
are those of treatment upon land, preparations for the future 
should include the early acquisition of sites for sewage farms. 
In England enormous sums have had to be paid by some towns 
to landowners holding the monopoly of land on which the sewage 
of towns could be treated by gravitation, and in this colony sites 
for sewage farms might now be obtained at prices much short of 
those which will have to be paid in ten, or even five, years from 
the present time. 
4.—GAUGING OF RIVERS. 
By Grorce Gorpon, M.Inst.C.E. 
[ Abstract. | 
THE object of the paper was to draw the attention of engineers 
specially to some possible disturbing elements in the observations 
from which the volume of discharge of large rivers is reckoned. 
After describing the difficulty of obtaining accurate measure- 
ments of the velocity by means of floats, and the superiority in 
most cases of measurements made by current meters, notwith- 
standing some difficulties inseparable from use of the latter, the 
paper touched on the selection of such a site for the observations 
as would reduce the errors to a minimum, and then proceeded to 
treat of the disturbances in the gaugings caused by the curye 
of the flood-wave, as well as by freshes in the tributaries 
and by outflows from the main river into ana-branches and 
swamps, and of the means of applying the necessary corrections, 
as well as of some methods by which the observations are 
facilitated. The author pointed out the necessity of frequently 
repeated measurements of the sectional area and velocity 
owing to the frequent changes of the river-bed during floods, 
and expressed the opinion that bodies who had the control of 
rivers should be required to furnish reliable returns of the 
discharge of rivers at all times. A hope was also expressed that 
the Governments of the colonies would in time be induced to 
establish such recording stations on all the principal rivers as 
would furnish results of observations that would be of use not 
only for practical but also for scientitic purposes. 
