MITIGATION OF FLOODS IN THE HUNTER RIVER. 115 



area which has disappeared since the advent of the white 

 man on some of the Upper Hunter streams I think the 

 result would be startling. 



V. Deviation of Roads. 

 The annual cost to the Roads Department of deviations 

 necessitated by washaways and repairs necessary by wash- 

 aways, must be very considerable, and having made special 

 enquiries, I find that many of these washaways are the 

 direct result of the destruction by private owners of trees 

 along the getaways for water. If the cost to the Roads 

 Department and to private citizens of road deviations, 

 (with culverts, etc.) necessary through the washing away 

 of the banks of rivers and creeks in the Hunter Valley, 

 were available, I think it would surprise a good many people. 



If the Public Works Department were to select say 100 

 definite places, on rivers, creeks, and furrows in cleared 

 land (what I might term "incipient creeks") and photo- 

 graph them every year, for say 5 or 10 years, the results 

 would be of the highest educational value. They would 

 be of value to the whole State, for the phenomena of aque- 

 ous denudation are in operation everywhere, although the 

 results may not be, in most places, so disastrous as on the 

 Hunter. 



VI. Falling in of Banks. 



These friable rich soil banks of the Hunter and some of 

 its tributaries fall to some extent wet or dry. In dry 

 weatlier they crack and tumble into the bed of the stream 

 because of their lack of cohesion. In wet weather the 

 rain soaks them, expansion takes place, cohesion again fails 

 and the result is the same. These banks are, in fact, in a 

 condition of unstable equilibrium. 



VII. Floods and Weeds. 



Another aspect of floods often lost sight of is the havoc 

 committed in the lower lands by the transmission of weed 



