14 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, 
pouring down there quantities of rain which, wasted in the moun- 
tains, would be a godsend on the plain. Around Christchurch, 
for several miles, the country is getting very well timbered, and I 
believe it to be a well-established fact that in this region the 
droughts are much less severe and the nor’-westers less blasting 
than formerly. About Amberley, and further north, trees are the 
exception rather than the rule, the climate is dry and parching, 
the winds hot and fierce. If every farmer would put in a few 
trees, no matter of what kind, it is probable that a beneficial 
change would be effected. At present one sees field after field, 
hundred acres after hundred acres—wheat, oats, grass, with’ 
scarcely a tree here and there—green enough perhaps in early 
spring, but parched and brown as soon as the summer heats come 
on, and totally without protection from the blast of the nor’- 
wester. The other point was the unfortunate policy which 
threw into the hands of one man, for a mere pittance, scores of 
thousands of acres of magnificent land, of which he makes no use 
beneficial to any one but himself. This error was perpetrated 
before Canterbury had control of her lands, but the effect has been 
lasting. And, as we travelled through mile after mile of this 
gentleman’s property, disgust found constant expression in the 
wish that nature, or some other power, would ere long deprive the 
owner of this magnificent expanse of the faculty of conserving a 
desert where thousands of willing farmers might settle in produc- 
tive homesteads. 
But I must hasten on. Leaving Amberley shortly after nine, 
we reached the Waikari “ Hotel” about noon. At once hungry 
nature asserted her claims, and a clamorous demand for food 
produced a substantial and excellent luncheon, to which the long 
journey of fifty miles and the clear fresh air made us do ample 
justice. One of our party, who had previously visited the rock- 
paintings, stated that they were situated a couple of miles from 
the Waikari. Leaving, therefore, our coach at the “hotel,” we 
instructed the driver to wait a few hours there, and then to pick 
us up at the entrance of the pass on our return from the paintings, 
our purpose being to dine and sleep at another inn about the 
middle of the Pass. Strolling away past the cuttings of the rail- 
way and the busy hum of the numerous navvies at work, we turned 
off the high road close to a farm house, taking a by-road through. 
the hills to what. is called. the. “ Basin. Farm.” This, “basin; : 
situated about a mile to the westward of the Pass itself, is cut off 
from it by a low rampart of hills, through which the Weka Creek, 
giving its name to the Pass, has cut its way in a gorge of lime- 
stone. The basin, indeed, which encloses the head waters of the 
creek (small swampy springs) gives one at first sight an idea that it 
was originally, or at least that it once contained, a small lake : but 
Iam notgeologist enough to say whether it did so or not. Speaking 
roughly, I should say that the area of the basin may be about 
1,500 or 2,000 acres. Our road rose over the low rampart, and 
turning to the north-west led towards the homestead. But before 
reaching this we came at about the lowest portion of the basin, 
