THE LAKES 



19 



stream's course continue to tap the softer material, the progress lakeward 

 of this deep rift would be relatively rapid. The lake-basin itself would 

 be reached in time and its soft contents quickly washed out. Each 

 little surface rill and brooklet draining the branch flats would deepen 

 into a gorge. The foot-hills resting on these little flats would in their 

 turn begin to move, until in a short time a steep valley, similar to others 

 in east Tutira, would be formed. " The thing that hath been, it is that 

 which shall be ; and that which is done is that which shall be done ; 

 and there is no new thing under the sun." The lake in fact is no more 

 a permanency than are the great conglomerate cliffs of central Tutira, 

 whose every pebble aeons ago has been frost-fractured on the heights of 



Waterfall receding towards lake. 



old- world hills. Now again they are crumbling into modern river gorges, 

 to be carried down to modern seas and ground to grains of sand. 



Ages, however, before this is likely to happen there will occur 

 another change to the waters of the lake. During a portion of each 

 season their escape will be barred. It will be a change consequent 

 not on strictly natural processes, but by reason of the great drain dug 

 in the 'nineties to connect the Papakiri, which used to filter through or 

 overflow the Big Swamp, with Tutira lake. This drain has become in 

 a quarter of a century gouged and gutted into a considerable water- 

 course. Silt which previously had been precipitated on the surface 

 of the swamp is now carried direct to the lake. At the mouth of the 

 drain there has been already created a long sand-spit ; the northern bay 



