76 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



To most, if not all, of those terms and idiomatic phrases (of which 

 many others could be readily furnished) for the various natural colours 

 of red, would be added the thing possessing that particular hue of red in 

 the estimation of the speaker ; who would also aim to be correct, otherwise 

 his comparison, or simile, would be sure to be ventilated and roughly 

 handled. Such was generally given with the comparative particle vie (like : 

 just as) preceding the noun : as, — tino ivhero, me te pua raataa:=oi a deep red, 

 like the flowers of the raataa tree : whero, me he koura=Yedi, just as a craw- 

 fish : whero, me he toto 2)ango=:Tedi, like black [or old) blood. There were 

 also several other modes of drawing the comparison. 



Of those examples I have given above, I have repeatedly heard a very 

 large number of them used. 



Art. IV. — Notes upon the great Floods of February, 1868. 



By W. T. L. Travers, F.L.S. 

 [Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, Brd September, 1881.] 

 In February, 1868, the northern part of the South Island was visited by an 

 extraordinary rainfall, which did a large amount of damage and left 

 indelible marks of its occurrence wherever the waters of the main rivers 

 rose above the height of ordinary floods. The general steepness of the 

 mountains within this area necessarily causes a rapid superficial drainage, 

 and, as a consequence, a rapid erosion and displacement of the materials of 

 their surface, so that during heavy rains the channels of all the draining 

 streams are not only quickly filled but their waters become heavily charged 

 with silt and gravel, which is carried into the main watercourses, converting 

 them into huge muddy torrents. Almost all the main rivers in this part 

 of the South Island are, in effect, torrents even to their mouths, the 

 average slope of their beds being little less than 35 feet to the mile. There 

 was, moreover, this peculiarity in the rainfall in question, namely, that the 

 quantity which fell within the first few hours was so great as to fill every 

 stream bank high, and as the rain continued to fall almost as heavily for many 

 hours after that had occurred, the main rivers not only became enormously 

 flooded Avithin a singularly short period, but maintained their flooded con- 

 dition for an unprecedented length of time. Many causes, too, resulting 

 from man's foolish and wanton interference with natural operations, had 

 contributed to bring about a rapid accumulation of the rainfall in the main 

 rivers. In the first place, the forest had been cleared by fires and otherwise, 

 but principally by fires, from a large extent of the eastern slopes of the 

 naouutains in the very localities in which the ordinary rainfall is usually 



