A REMARKABLE MAORI MANUSCRIPT. 289 



formation was at the surface at two points, Wainui and 

 Porongahu, twenty miles apart, and one of these points, 

 Wainui, was a hundred feet higher than the other, then 

 the formation dipped one hundred feet in twenty miles, 

 or five feet a mile in the direction from Wainui to 

 Porongahu. If by any means lie could ascertain that the 

 formation occurred at some point near Wainui, but at 

 an elevation fifteen feet higher or lower than Wainui, 

 then the dip between the two points would be fifteen feet 

 more or less than a hundred feet. So he undertook to 

 ascertain what he called the "dip" of the underlying 

 formations in all parts of the province. Having come to 

 a knowledge of the dips, he was able, he said, to calculate 

 what formations underlay each locality. For, supposing 

 Pipi-riki and Peri-riki to be twenty miles apart, and Peri- 

 riki to be seventy feet higher up the river than Pipi-riki; 

 and supposing the dip from Peri-riki down the stream to 

 be five feet per mile, then the formation on which Peri- 

 riki stands must pass under Pipi-riki, because the dip is 

 more rapid than the descent of the stream ; but if the 

 dip is but two feet per mile, then the formation on which 

 Peri-riki stands thins out and disappears before reaching 

 Pipi-riki, and there would be no propriety in sinking a 

 shaft at Pipi-riki to strike the formation which at Peri- 

 riki may bear a valuable bed of kauri-gum.* The ex- 

 travagance and inutility of this mode of operation are so 

 apparent that I shall make no effort to expose them. 



But the man with a hammer had a still worse crotchet 

 in his head, and one much more wasteful of the people's 



* These explanations are said to have been graphically illustrated in the 

 margin of the manuscript, but the Governor of New Zealand did not transmit 

 copies of the illustrations with the translation. 

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