DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND, 1181 



institution. The Press is worthily represented, and the leading industries are suggested by 

 the woollen factory, two large meat-freezing works and abattoirs, and numerous grain stores. 

 Oamaru is seventy-eight miles north of Dunedin, and midway between the two 

 places lies the town of Palmerston, in a picturesque valley surrounded by low and 

 undulating hills. It is the point of departure by coach for the Dunstan gold-reefing 

 district, while coal-mining operations are carried on at Shag Point, only six miles distant. 

 The remaining forty miles of the trip to Dunedin lie through highly diversified country, 

 with the greatly indented contour of the coast-line on one side, and pleasing alternations 

 of hill and vale on the other. After leaving Blueskin, the railway line skirts the farthest 

 verge of bold and precipitous cliffs ; then plunges through the Deborah Bay Tunnel and 

 out again into the brilliant sunshine ; until, passing the Maori " kaik" at which reside 

 the chief Taiaroa and his people, the tourist finds himself gazing down from an eminence 

 upon the substantial little town of Port Chalmers, lying secluded within the bight of 



Otago Harbour. This important haven is an estuary, or arm of the sea, fifteen miles 





 deep. The entrance is between Taiaroa Head, a bold dome-shaped headland, two 



hundred and forty-four feet high and crowned by a battery of guns, and Hay ward 

 Point, a precipitous bluff at the end of the Peninsula which projects from the main-land 

 below Dunedin. Between these two heads, a bar of hard white sandstone extends about 

 a mile in a north-westerly direction. It is the chief drawback to the Port. 



The channel from the Heads up to the wharves, seven miles distant, is compara- 

 tively deep, but narrow. From Port Chalmers the estuary penetrates farther inland to 

 Dunedin, a distance of eight miles. Port Chalmers is small but decidedly solid, most of 

 its buildings being constructed of a bluish stone quarried in the neighbourhood. The 

 wharfage accommodation is ample, and all the conveniences of a first-class harbour are 

 provided. The Graving Dock, which was opened as long ago as 1872, measures three 

 hundred and twenty-eight feet long by forty-one feet wide, while the depth of water 

 ranges from seventeen feet six inches to twenty-one feet six inches. There is also a 

 floating-dock one hundred and seventy feet long by forty-two broad. Since January, 

 1882, the largest steam-dredge in the world has been busily engaged in deepening the 

 entrance to the Port and the channel of the Upper Harbour to Dunedin, which has 

 now been completely buoyed. Amongst the public institutions may be mentioned the 

 Sailors' Rest, the Mechanics' Institute and the Foresters' Hall, and the chief local indus- 

 tries that strike the eye are the quarries, the gas-works and a cordial factory. 



THE CITY OF DUNEDIN. 



The train which the visitor enters at the Port crosses one of the principal streets, 

 plunges into a short tunnel, and thence pursues a serpentine course along the margin 

 of the channel to Dunedin. On the right are sloping hills more or less wooded, and 

 dotted with growing settlements, and away across the water-way on the other side is 

 the undulating contour of the Peninsula, now almost wholly denuded of timber. Passing 

 the suburb of Ravensbourne and turning the corner of a cliff, the channel opens out 

 and deflects to the south, and the city of Dunedin, the metropolis of the South Island, 

 lies stretched out before the eye. Along the entire length of the fore-shore, and for 

 some distance inland, are long lines of noble thoroughfares pursuing an even course 



