94 Transactions. —Miscellaneous. 
science by providing some of the more expensive tools required, and by 
paying scientific men, so that they might devote more of their time to 
scientific studies. 
He ean do none of these things, except at the cost of the working 
classes; all the wealth devoted to the work would be diverted from the 
production of material ccmforts, whieh, if produced, they would enjoy, and 
no one has a right to make his poorer fellow-citizens pay for anything, 
unless he, after careful consideration aided by the best knowledge open to 
him, is fully convinced that the privation he compels them to suffer is com- 
pensated by the advantages they will get in exchange. - 
It is not too much to say that an expenditure equal to that represented 
by the national debt of England would be well invested, if it could be 
made the means of rousing the working classes of England to insist on 
every one of their children being as well educated as might be done, with- 
out throwing any unbearable burthen on the country. 
Art. IIT.— Observations on the Evidences of recent Change in the Elevation of 
the Waikato District. By James Stewart, C.E. 
[Read before the Auckland Institute, 6th December, 1875.] 
Tuar rivers are ever scooping their beds to lower levels, and eroding their 
banks until new channels are established, are matters of common observa- 
tion. Considering the immense weight of water in a river like the Waikato, 
its moderately rapid current, and its course, in the lower parts, through 
alluvial flats composed of materials of the lightest nature, it is at first sight 
subject for wonder that the changes are not more rapid than they are. It 
is, however, true that the lower Waikato cannot now eut its channel very 
much deeper in a practical view, unless the land is raised, relative to sea 
level, beeause a certain definite gradient has to be preserved to carry the 
water off to sea. But if we suppose the land to be elevated, suddenly or other- 
wise, a great change would soon be observed in the condition of the river. 
Falls or rapids would be established at its mouth, which, in more or less 
time, according to the nature of the bed, would reduce the gradient to what 
it was before. During the time this was being effected, the increased 
eurrent would have formed a new channel, sometimes coincident with the 
old one, but often crossing and recrossing it, until, when the normal level 
and current had again been established, the old river course would be 
traceable as a series of Jagoons or narrow winding swamps, elevated above 
the new level of the river, by as much as the land had been raised. 
