226 



exceptions, been confined to forecasting the weather, the somewhat intricate 

 nature of barometric calculations, having prevented its general adoption as an 

 instrument for taking levels. It is hoped that these tables, by removing the 

 difficulties referred to, will pave the way to a more extended use of this 

 valuable instrument which is especially adapted for taking trial sections in 

 wooded and mountainous districts, and with which, under proper management, 

 very close results may be obtained, without that expenditure of time and 

 money, involved in the use of the spirit level under such circumstances." 



Art. LVII. — The earth of New Zealand, a bad Conductor of Electricity, 

 as compared with that of other countries. By F. E. Wright. 



[Bead before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, September 1, 1869.] 



My attention was first attracted to this subject under the following circum- 

 stances : — 



In March, 1867, I had occasion to visit Hawkswood, in the Nelson 

 Province, and I returned to Christchurch via the Cheviot Hills, following the 

 line of telegraph all the way back. Between Hawkswood and Glenmark I 

 saw that a large number of the telegraph poles were lying on the ground ; they 

 were birch saplings, and most of those still standing appeared to be so badly 

 rotted at the point of their emergence from the soil, that I have but little 

 doubt many more fell during a south-west gale which detained me two days at 

 Mr. Moore's station. I need hardly state that the poles for the whole of the 

 distance, here referred to, have been replaced by others of a more substantial 

 character. 



Under these circumstances, on arriving at Christchurch, I felt it almost 

 useless to ask at the Telegraph Office, if the line was open to Wellington, and 

 was greatly surprised to find that messages could be forwarded. This was at 

 variance with my previous knowledge of the subject, and I thought it so 

 curious and exceptional, that I have since lost no opportunity of enquiring 

 into the matter, the result of which has been a settled conviction on my mind, 

 that an altogether anomalous state of the soil, so far as its conductibility of 

 electricity is concerned, obtains in these Islands. 



Mr. de Sauty, the late electrician of the telegraph department, who is 

 quoted as an authority in several recent works on telegraphy, and who had 

 been engaged on telegraph lines in various parts of the world, assured me that 

 he was unaware of any other country or place exhibiting similar character- 

 istics. 



Mr. Bird, the present Provincial Inspector of Telegraphs, informed me, a 

 year or two since, that were the conditions of the earth as a conductor of 

 electricity the same here as in Europe or America, it would have been quite 

 hopeless, for months together, to have endeavoured to send a telegraphic 

 message in any direction from Christchurch, there being faults in all the lines, 

 which would have proved sufficient to destroy the connection in any other 

 place but New Zealand. 



Mr. Meddings, attached to the Telegraph Office in this city, who takes 

 the greatest personal interest in his vocation, and works at it with a zeal 

 which may be termed enthusiastic, has made many interesting experiments on 

 the subject. He tells me that he finds the greatest difficulty in getting a good 

 dead earth in Christchurch, or in fact in any part of New Zealand to which he 

 has been called by his employment. 



This anomalous state of the earth in this country was at first to some 

 extent accounted for, in my mind, by the dryness of the soil, thinking that the 



