IV.—GENERAL SUMMARY.

35. In retiring from the management of the Public Works Department, after having held the office of Provincial Engineer ever since the first establishment of the Public Works Department in 1854, it may be desirable that I should take a brief review of the progress effected during that period in the internal communications of the province.

36. The works undertaken by the Canterbury Association, under whose auspices the settlement was founded in 1848, were necessarily limited in extent, and the greater part of the money at the disposal of the Association was expended in forming the site of the port town, in erecting the necessary public buildings, and in beginning the cart road to the plains over the port hills. If to these we add a rough bridle track over Mount Pleasant, some temporary wooden bridges, a few miles of road ditches, and a short length of gravelled road between Christchurch Quay and Christchurch, the enumeration of the public works executed previous to 1853 is tolerably complete.

37. With the establishment of Provincial Government in 1853 a new era commenced in Canterbury, and one of the first steps taken by the local government early in 1854, was to appoint a commission of engineers to report on the best method of forming a communication between the port and the plains. The works recommended by this commission were the completion of the Sumner Road and the improvement of the Heathcote navigation, whilst the commissioners pointed out the line of railway now in construction between Lyttelton and Christchurch as a work to be undertaken at some future period.

38. The first important work undertaken by the Provincial Government was the cutting a track through the bush on Banks’ Peninsula, to connect the harbours of Lyttelton and Akaroa by a line which, rising at an easy gradient from Purau beach, follows the summits of the ranges, and crossing Mount Sinclair at an elevation of 2600 feet, descends by gentle inclines into Duvauchelle’s Bay. This was followed by the resumption of the works on the Sumner Road, but under an important change of plan. The original line laid out by Captain Thomas rose at a uniform gradient from Lyttelton to Evans’ Pass, whence it descended into Sumner Valley in the same manner. Although the gradient of this road was unexceptionable, its cost would have been very great, as it intersected the rocky terraces formed by the lava streams of which the Port hills are composed, rendering it necessary to make a series of heavy rock cuttings and high retaining walls alternating with each other throughout the whole of the ascent and descent. Your engineer took the step of re-modelling the gradients so as to correspond with the inclinations of the lava streams, by which means the road has been cut for the most part in soft clay and through the soft crumbling rock found in the upper portion of the lava streams whilst it rests on a floor of solid rock. By this means both rock cutting and walling are reduced to a minimum, and the road was opened at a comparatively small cost. It was intended to cross the ridge by a tunnel 350 yards long, at a depth of 260 feet below the summit of the original line, but political considerations having interfered with the completion of the plan, the traffic is to this day carried over this saddle by the zig-zag track made for opening a temporary communication, pending the boring of the tunnel.

39. Simultaneously with the roading of the country the land fund began rapidly to increase, and from the year 1856 the public works gave indications of the importance they have since assumed, and which has materially contributed to enhance the rising reputation of the Canterbury province.

40. The River Heathcote, whose tortuous channel was traversed with difficulty by decked vessels only of the smallest class, has been rendered accessible to steamers and schooners of large tonnage by placing leading marks at the bar and staking out the channel.

41. The Sumner Road, even though unfinished, forms a well travelled communication between Lyttelton and Christchurch; and the River Heathcote will shortly be spanned by a drawbridge, the ironwork of which is now on its way from England.

42. The Provinces of Nelson and Otago have been connected by a good road extending through the whole length of the Canterbury province, a distance of two hundred miles.

43. The bays in Banks’ Peninsula have been brought into communication with the port town by means of bridle-roads through the bush.

44. District roads branching in various directions open up for settlement nearly the whole of the available country between the seaboard and the ranges, whilst a great deal of the back country, formerly deemed inaccessible, can now be reached by dray-track or bridle-path. Even that terra incognita, the West Coast, will soon be accessible for pack-horses by the track now in progress over the Teremakau Pass, the completion of which, by opening a way to the western gold-fields, is likely to lead to important results.

45. Efficient systems of arterial drainage are in progress throughout the Rangiora, Papanui, and Halswell districts, which will have the effect of permanently reclaiming many thousand acres of valuable swamp land, the greater part of which has already been purchased from the Crown.

46. The electric telegraph has been introduced into the province, the line between Lyttelton and Christchurch being the first opened for public use in New Zealand.

47. And lastly, the main lines of railway have been laid out throughout the province; and the construction of the tunnel through the port hills, the key to the whole railway system of Canterbury, is so far advanced as to leave little doubt of the line between the port and the capital being opened in the course of the year 1866.

48. There are several points connected with the above mentioned works which are worth placing on record.

1st. They extend over a district 200 miles in length and 130 miles in breadth.

2nd. Their cost, amounting in round numbers to two hundred and eighty-three thousand pounds, in addition to that of the Lyttelton and Christchurch railway, has been defrayed out of the yearly revenues of a province of which the whole population even now little exceeds 20,000 souls.