(1859–1925).

General secretary, New Zealand Alliance.

John Dawson was born on 4 June 1859 at Keighley, Yorkshire, the son of John Wm. Dawson and Mary née Hird. Left fatherless at an early age, Dawson was obliged to leave school and become a factory worker. He joined the Primitive Methodist Church and became a local preacher when he was 17. In 1880 he became a lay evangelist and served in this post for five years. The experience he gained here led him to make a career in the ministry, with the result that in 1885 he entered the Grattan Guiness Missionary Institute (now Cliff College), near Calver in Derbyshire. In 1888 Dawson was ordained by the British Primitive Methodist Conference and directed to join the New Zealand Mission. From 1889 to 1892 he served on the Thames circuit, first as a probationer but latterly as superintendent. He spent the next five years as minister in Christchurch and was then transferred to Wellington where he served until 1909.

In Christchurch Dawson became associated with T. E. Taylor, L. M. Isitt, and the other leaders of the newly formed prohibition movement. He became an active member of the New Zealand Alliance, being its vice-president in 1899 and chairman of the executive for 10 years. In 1909 the Primitive Methodist Conference freed him from his pastoral duties so that he might succeed the Rev. Frank Isitt as general secretary of the New Zealand Alliance, a post he held until his death 16 years later. During this period Dawson became widely known because of his assiduous parliamentary lobbying and campaigning in favour of total prohibition. In this connection he represented New Zealand at international congresses on the alcohol question, twice in the United States and once in Switzerland. In addition to these activities Dawson retained his close association with his church. He was always an ardent champion of Methodist Union and in 1915 was elected president of the United Methodist Conference.

In 1883 at Keighley, Yorkshire, Dawson married Annie, daughter of William Hoyle, and by her had two sons and two daughters. He died at 136 Coromandel Street, Wellington, on 13 September 1925.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• Temperance and Prohibition in New Zealand, Cocker, J., and Murray, J. M. (1929)
• The Vanguard, 22 May 1926
• Dominion, 14 Sep 1925 (Obit).

(1872–1962).

Businessman and philanthropist.

A new biography of Davis, Ernest Hyam appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

“Ernest” Hyam Davis was born on 17 February 1872 at Nelson, the son of Moss Davis (1847–1919), a local merchant, and Leah, née Jacobs. He was educated at Bishop's School, Nelson, and at Auckland Grammar School. He began his commercial career in the Auckland offices of William McArthur and Co., ironmongers, and, at the age of 26, joined his father in Hancock and Co. Davis later became chairman of directors of this firm and held this office until his death. He was also chairman of the Devonport Steam Ferry Co. for 20 years, of the North Shore Transport Co., of the Northern Steamship Co., of the Auckland Meat Co., of Bycroft Ltd., of Brents Ltd., and of Kawerau Hotel Ltd. In addition he was chairman of directors and held controlling interest in New Zealand Breweries Ltd. and in the New Zealand Distillery Co. From 1942 he was a trustee of the Auckland Savings Bank, being chairman in 1947–48 (centenary year) and again in 1960. In 1962 he was elected president of the Associated Trustee Savings Banks.

Davis had a distinguished career in many public offices. About 1912 he was elected to the Newmarket Borough Council, where he served two terms before becoming mayor of the borough for four years. He served two terms on Auckland City Council and was mayor from 1935 to 1941. He also served on Auckland Hospital Board (two terms), Auckland Harbour Board (three terms), Auckland Fire Board (one term), and was chairman of the Auckland and Suburban Drainage Board (one term). It has been estimated that, at some stage, he held leading offices in 94 sporting and social bodies, including 11 national bodies.

Davis was a keen yachtsman and in 1957, to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of his membership of yachting clubs, he was made a life member of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. In his later years he took an increasing interest in horse racing and was New Zealand's leading owner in 1952–53, 1954–55, 1956–57, and 1957–58. His horse, Arawa, won the Auckland Cup in 1954 and, in February 1958, he won the St. James Cup, Trentham, with Bali Ha'i.

During his lifetime Davis made many benefactions to Auckland. At different times he commissioned Edward Halliday, R.A., the English portrait painter, to paint portraits of Queen Elizabeth II, the Queen Mother, the Duke of Edinburgh, Lord Freyberg, and Sir Edmund Hillary for the city. In 1956 he presented Brown's Island (Motukorea) in Auckland harbour to the city. This has been renamed “Davis Marine Park”. In June 1959 he donated gifts totalling £39,100 to selected Auckland religious groups and charities. The Mater Misericordiae Hospital alone received £20,000 of this sum. In August 1961 he presented two sections in Anzac Avenue to the city as a public park and lookout. Shortly before his death the Government approved plans to establish on Tiritiri Matangi Island the “Davis Marine Light”, which has a strength of 11 million candlepower and cost £20,000. His last gift, made a week before his death, was £10,000 towards the Mater Misericordiae Hospital Nurses' Home extension. Davis died in Auckland on 16 September 1962.

On 2 August 1899, in Auckland, Davis married Marion (1877–1955), daughter of Walter Mitchell, and, by her, he had one son, Desmond Elias (1908–58), and one daughter. After his wife's death on 5 May 1955, Davis built and endowed with £100,000 the “Marion Davis Memorial Medical Library”. This stands in the grounds of Auckland Hospital and is regarded as one of the finest institutions of its kind in the world. Davis left an estate valued at about £800,000 and the residue of this is to be used for further endowment of the medical library. In addition, during his own lifetime, he established a smaller trust, the “Desmond Elias Davis Trust Fund”, as a memorial to his only son who died in 1958.

In the 1937 Coronation Honours Davis was knighted for his public services and, in the following year, the French Government conferred upon him the Cross of a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• New Zealand Herald, 17 Sep 1962 (Obit)
• Auckland Star, 17 Sep 1962 (Obit)
• Dominion, 6 Oct 1962
• Otago Daily Times, 17 Sep 1962 (Obit)
• Evening Post, 22 Sep 1962.

(1816–87).

Maori interpreter, Maori adviser, and writer.

A new biography of Davis, Charles Oliver Bond appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Charles Oliver Bond Davis, named after the Irish patriot, was born in Sydney in 1816, his father being an Irish stonecutter. The early death of his parents left Davis and his younger brothers under the care of a sister aged 15. Five years later, after her marriage to a Captain William Young, the couple migrated to Hokianga in the brig Tranmore, bringing with them Edward and Charles Davis.

Young, a man of faith and rectitude in the dubious environment of early Hokianga, appears for a time to have continued the education of his junior brother-in-law. A little later Davis became associated with the family of William Woon, helping possibly as a part-time tutor. From his first years in New Zealand he acquired and extended a commanding knowledge of Maori and may have attracted the attention of the officials present during the Waitangi Treaty negotiations at Hokianga. In 1842 he entered Government service as a clerk and interpreter, rising to the position of chief interpreter in the Native Secretary's Office from which he resigned in 1857.

Davis's knowledge of Maori, his personal sympathy with and understanding of the Maori outlook, in conjunction with his official position, led an increasing number of influential Maoris to turn to him for advice and assistance. In 1855 he published Maori Mementos, which comprised a collection of old songs, laments, and stories, together with a series of addresses presented by the Maori people to Sir George Grey prior to his departure from New Zealand in December 1853. Davis soon became involved in the affairs of the Waikato and attended, among other meetings, one at Ihumata in June 1857 to collect money for a Maori printing press. He also edited and issued papers in the Maori language. Advice which he gave to Wiremu Tamihana when that chief was rebuffed in his request for Government assistance in the erection of a flourmill, may have been a factor in developing Tamihana's support for the King movement. Although Davis in his evidence before the Waikato Committee in 1860 recalled the incident as occurring in 1857, it has been argued that the interview in fact took place two years earlier. In February 1857 Davis submitted a plan for a three-fold separation of native affairs into general administration, legal responsibilities, and land purchasing.

The next decade was one of frustration and difficulty for Davis. During the period of the Maori Wars, when the weight of public opinion was strongly against Maori sympathisers, Davis was charged with having published a seditious libel in the form of a Ngaiterangi satire on the Arawa. He was, however, acquitted. He was able to work with McLean during the latter's terms of office as Native Minister, preparing the ground for visits to the Waikato and elsewhere and assisting with Court work in Rotorua and Taupo. To McLean, to whom he expressed his indebtedness on a number of occasions, he dedicated his second major work, The Life and Times of Patuone (1876). In addition to his contributions to the Maori Messenger, Davis, as a versifier on religious and other themes, issued a number of his poems as broadsides as well as his Temperance Songs for the Maori (1873). He died at Auckland on 28 June 1887.

Davis appeals today as a man worthy of our interest and respect. He was a notable Maori scholar, but his finest achievement was the attempt to bring about a racial rapprochement by means of a rare Christianity and understanding of the Maori mind and mode of life. Had his example been followed by the leaders of the day, the problem of Maori-Pakeha relationship might well have been solved without recourse to war.

by Austin Graham Bagnall, M.A., A.L.A., Librarian, National Library Centre, Wellington.

• New Zealand Herald, 29 Jun 1887 (Obit).

(1846–1924).

Superintendent for Canterbury and Otago Land Association in New Zealand, general manager, New Zealand and Australia Land Company, pioneer of the frozen meat industry in New Zealand.

A new biography of Davidson, William Soltau appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Davidson was born in Edinburgh in 1846, the son of David Davidson, one of the chief officers of the National Bank of Scotland, and a cousin of Randall Davidson, D.D. (1848–1930), Archbishop of Canterbury. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy, and was learning bookkeeping in an Edinburgh merchant's office at 19. As Davidson wanted an outdoor life, arrangements were made for him to go to a family friend's estancia in Argentina. His father, however, was persuaded by James Morton, a City financier, that New Zealand offered greater opportunities for a young man. Morton had recently started a land company, the Canterbury and Otago Association, and Davidson joined this as a cadet, arriving at Port Chalmers in the Celoeno on 30 December 1865. He went to Levels Station at Timaru, which the association had recently purchased from George Rhodes. It then comprised 153,000 acres, with no roads, practically no trees, and only 26 miles of fencing. The flock consisted of 85,352 Merino sheep grazing native grass which, while not fattening, produced splendid wool clips. Davidson commenced as a shepherd (1866–67), but was promoted overseer on the Cave outstation (1868), where he did hard and constant sheep work. In 1869 he became assistant to Donald McLean, the company's superintendent at Levels, whom he later succeeded (1875).

Davidson realised that it would be uneconomic to run Merino sheep on land valued at £2 per acre. Consequently small farmers were brought in to share crop successive portions of Levels, and these areas were afterwards planted in imported English grasses. Recognising the limitations of the Merino breed, Davidson, with company approval, determined to establish a new pure half-breed sheep which he believed would be most suited to the new pastures. He therefore established, in 1874, the strain which became No. 1 in the Corriedale flock-book. He crossed some highly bred Merino ewes with two specially imported Lincoln stud rams. The first lambing yielded about 450 females. These were heavily culled, only about 150, carefully selected to fulfil required characteristics, being retained. In due course the young ewes were mated with rams from their own lot; heavy culling was maintained, the entire flock continuing to be entirely inbred.

Davidson remained at Levels as superintendent until the amalgamation of the association with the New Zealand and Australia Land Company, when he became New Zealand superintendent for the joint companies. He left New Zealand in 1878, returning via Australia to Scotland, where he succeeded Morton as general manager. His post at Levels was taken by Charles Orbell, and the superintendency by Thomas Brydone.

Davidson was not happy about the company's Southland holdings where large capital outlay entailed insignificant profit. He was convinced that Australia contained greater possibilities for a large company, and recommended transferring the company's major interest there. A large company, with strategically placed estates, could profitably beat the Australian drought by unloading stock between its estates. This transfer took 35 years, but in the end it vindicated Davidson's opinion.

In 1880, following successful voyages by S.S. Strathleven and S.S. Protos from Australia to England (80 days) with cargoes of frozen meat, Davidson saw similar possibilities for New Zealand. With his directors' approval, he approached James Galbraith of the Albion Company, and Messrs Bell of Coleman and Co., and arranged for, and during succeeding months supervised, the fitting out of the Dunedin. On 20 April 1881 he instructed Brydone to arrange for the killing and preparing of sheep for shipment. Davidson himself sailed out on the Dunedin and, on 7 December 1881, personally stowed the first frozen carcass ever loaded in New Zealand. A breakdown in the refrigeration on 11 December necessitated unloading and selling the cargo, but by 11 February 1882 loading was again completed. Dunedin, with Davidson aboard, sailed on 15 February 1882, arriving at London Docks on 14 May (98 days). The experiment had proved a success.

Brydone (1881) suggested that the company's Southland estates, which were proving hard to sell, might be utilised for dairying. Davidson, then on the eve of one of his periodical inspection tours, came out via Canada, where he studied the dairy factory system. At Ingersoll he was given full plans of a dairy factory. These he sent to Brydone who (1882) built New Zealand's first dairy factory at Edendale, on the company's estate, the company purchasing 300 cows to start the project. The factory cost £1,200, but the company recouped £500 when they won the Government bonus offered for the first export of New Zealand cheese. Edendale at first produced only Cheddar cheese, but Davidson decided later that butter was feasible also. With this in mind he visited Denmark (1890), where he inspected numerous butter factories, interviewed experts, and secured the services of a first-rate butter maker, whom he sent out to the Edendale factory.

With so much of the company's interest transferred to Australia, Davidson devoted more attention to its estates there. His Corriedale stud in New Zealand was used to establish studs in Australia, and his Western Australia draughthorse stud was similarly founded, by bringing in a shipload of mares from New Zealand.

Davidson retired as general manager in 1916, but remained a director until his death. He was also director of the National Bank of Scotland, of the National Mortgage Agency Co. of New Zealand Ltd., and of the Scottish Union and National Insurance Co. He died at his estate at Leuchie, North Berwick, on 17 July 1924.

Davidson's great contribution to New Zealand's economy has often been credited to Brydone, his superintendent on the spot. From cadet shepherd to general manager of a vast organisation he worked his way up, gathering experience with every step. He planned all his operations on a grand scale devoting painstaking attention to every detail. As general manager, his boundaries were almost limitless, his vision immense, and his management ability of the rank of genius. It was largely due to his efforts that New Zealand's dependence on gold mining was superseded by agricultural and pastoral enterprises, with their related industries.

by Bernard John Foster, M.A., Research Officer, Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington.

• South Canterbury, Gillespie, O. A. (1958)
• Davidson and Brydone, Founders of the New Zealand Meat Export Industry, Hewland, P. D. (1958)
• William Saltau Davidson, 1846–1924, A Sketch of his Life Covering a Period of Fifty-two Years, 1864–1916, in the Employment of the New Zealand and Australia Land Co. Ltd., Davidson, W. S. (1930).

Dargaville is situated on alluvial flats on the northern bank of the Wairoa River and about 40 miles north of the entrance to the Kaipara Harbour. A branch railway to Waiotira links Dargaville with the Auckland-Opua extension of the North Island Main Trunk line. Dargaville is 89 miles south by road via Opononi from Kaikohe, 39 miles south-west from Whangarei, and 115 miles north-west from Auckland.

The rural activities of the district are varied and include sheep and cattle raising, dairying, mixed agricultural farming, market gardening, and fruitgrowing. Wine is made at Te Kopuru (7 miles south-east) and Turiwiri (2 miles south-east). Lime is quarried at Tangowahine (8 miles north-east) and Arapohue (10 miles south-east). There are sawmills at Aratapu (6 miles south-east), Mititai (7 miles south-east), and Tangowahine. At Mangawhare, 1 mile south-east of Dargaville, butter and dried milk are manufactured. Dargaville is a servicing and distributing centre for a large district. Town industrial activities include the manufacture of bricks and tiles, concrete products, joinery, wine, and phormium fibre, as well as general engineering, sawmilling, timber impregnation, and, on a limited seasonal scale, toheroa canning. There is also a large milk-treatment station in the town. Dargaville is an important tourist junction for visitors to Waipoua State Forest (32½ miles north-west) and Trounson Kauri Park (22½ miles north-west).

The Rev. Samuel Marsden visited the district in August 1820 when he travelled overland from Waitemata to Kaipara Harbour and continued up the Wairoa River to the limit of canoe navigation en route to the Bay of Islands. In September of the same year Marsden again passed through the district in the course of a journey from Waitemata Harbour to the Bay of Islands via Hokianga Harbour. The first local European settler was probably Thomas Spencer Forsaith who purchased from the Maoris land around the northern shores of Kaipara Harbour and along the Wairoa River and became established at Mangawhare, near Dargaville, in 1839. The milling and export of kauri timber was the principal activity in the district from about 1839, and from the early 1860s the associated kauri gum industry flourished. After 1900 these industries declined and farming increased in importance. In more recent years large areas of land which had been rendered unproductive by kauri gum digging have been developed for farming by the Departments of Lands and Survey and Maori Affairs.

The town of Dargaville owes its origin to the enterprise of Joseph McMullen Dargaville, a merchant who was associated with kauri timber and kauri gum ventures in the district. In 1872 Dargaville purchased the Tunatahi Block and proceeded to lay out a private township with two hotels at the junction of the Kaihu and Wairoa Rivers. The town became a centre for the kauri timber industry. As overland communication was at first by inferior bullock tracks, nearly all passenger and goods traffic was by sea. About 1883 the Kaihu Valley Railway Co. completed a line linking Dargaville with Kaihu, primarily to serve the kauri timber industry. The line was taken over by the Government in 1890 and subsequently extended to Donnellys but with the improvement of road transport it eventually became uneconomic and was closed down on 15 July 1959. In 1872 a paddle-steamship service was inaugurated between Helensville and Dargaville, but owing to insufficient patronage was withdrawn after six months. Later, a more efficient screw-propelled vessel began a service which ran until the decline of the timber industry, improved road communication, and the completion of the railway link between Waiotira and Dargaville in 1940 combined to make it uneconomic. Dargaville was constituted a borough in 1908.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 2,809; 1956 census, 3,306; 1961 census, 3,737.

by Brian Newton Davis, M.A., Vicar, St. Philips, Karori West, Wellington and Edward Stewart Dollimore, Research Officer, Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington.

Dannevirke is located on terraces in the upper valley of the Manawatu River. The Ruahine Range rises to the west, and to the east the land is broken by a discontinuous chain of hills—the Whangai, Waewaepa, and Puketoi Ranges. The Palmerston North-Napier railway and main highway pass through the town. By road Dannevirke is 17 miles north-east of Woodville and 80 miles south-west of Napier, the nearest port. Dannevirke is a servicing centre for a dairying and sheep-farming district. Important industries in the town include footwear and clothing manufacturing, wool processing, engineering, and the manufacture of concrete products. Large saleyards provide facilities for stock marketing. Butter, cheese, and casein are produced in the district and there are two sawmills operating.

Originally the site of Dannevirke lay within the Seventy-mile Bush on an ancient Maori trail extending from the Manawatu Plain to Hawke's Bay. The Wellington and Hawke's Bay Provincial Governments jointly purchased the Seventy Mile Bush from the Maoris, and arrangements were made with the General Government to open up the land with assisted immigrants from Scandinavia. By June 1872 a bridle track linking Napier and Palmerston North had been surveyed by Charles Weber and placed in fair condition. Dannevirke means “a work of the Danes.” The name was applied to the site before the settlers arrived, probably in memory of “Dannevirke” or “Thyra's Vold”, a wall built in the ninth and tenth centuries in Denmark for defence against the Saxons. Scandinavian settlers arrived at Napier by the Hovding and Ballarat in September 1872 and on 15 October twenty-one families occupied sections in a bush clearing at Dannevirke. The early settlers encountered great difficulties due largely to high transport costs. A regular coach service was operating between Foxton and Napier by 1874, and in 1884 the railway reached the town. With the railway, sawmilling became an important activity and the population grew.

Dannevirke was at first part of the Seventy Mile Bush Highway District, which was created on 15 April 1872. In 1877 the town was administered by the Dannevirke Road Board, in 1885 it became a town district, and in 1892 was made a borough.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 4,664; 1956 census, 5,294; 1961 census, 5,517.

by Brian Newton Davis, M.A., Vicar, St. Philips, Karori West, Wellington and Edward Stewart Dollimore, Research Officer, Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington.

Referring to hydro-electrical development, while some dams are provided only for the control of natural water storage (e.g., at Taupo, Cobb, Pukaki, and Hawea lakes), the primary object of others is to create the difference in water level necessary for the production of hydraulic power. The principle is typified in the chain of projects on the Waikato River: Taupo lake water, controlled by a gated weir, is fed to a series of dams downstream that develop the available “head” in successive reaches of the river. The diagram reveals that little of the gross head between lake and sea remains unutilised.

The height to which a dam can be built is determined by a number of factors. In the case of storage dams, the required reserve of water in relation to probability of incidence, and duration of, “dry” periods, together with the cost increment involved in the increase in height of a dam, are aspects that come in for consideration. In the case of hydroelectric dams essentially for head, the higher the dam the more effective the water, hence the aim is to build to as great a height as is practicable. Where characteristics of the dam site or of the valley and its existing economic usage do not interpose a natural limit, a consideration of incremental cost of the increased head, as compared with cost of obtaining the additional power from other sources (including the possibility of another dam on the same river), becomes the deciding factor.

by William Eric Sisson, B.E.(CIVIL), A.M.I.STRUCT.E., Inspecting Engineer (Power), Ministry of Works, Wellington.

It is not only the artificial barrier that has to be watertight but also the country formation underlying the dam and surrounding the body of water. In certain instances—not in New Zealand—reservoirs have failed to fill because of undiscovered seepage paths underground. Foundation and abutment treatments, sometimes extending also to parts of the lake's rim, to tighten and strengthen these zones are an important feature of dam construction; such treatments (e.g., by pressure injections of fluid mixtures of cement and water and of other materials) may often extend in depth to hundreds of feet and can become quite elaborate and expensive. Foundation treatments at Karapiro and Roxburgh dams extend actually below sea level. Moreover, saturation of the foundation materials, whether of earth or rock, through ingress of lake water and the ensuing development of “pore pressures”, can endanger the stability of dams owing to the effects of partial flotation. Hence to tighten the formation in the vicinity of the water-face is not enough. It is also necessary to provide means for drainage from under and from within the body of the structure or embankment. Typical examples of these provisions are depicted in the diagrams.

Typical features of various types of dams are depicted in the diagrams and illustrations. Two that come in for mention are the “outlets” and the “spillway”. The outlets provide for the draw-off of required water and often constitute the “intakes” of other installations associated with use of the water; in particular the intakes to pipelines or penstocks of hydro-electric power projects may be quite large. In some cases the intakes may be part of a structural unit that forms a separate dam from the main barrier. Similarly, the facilities for the discharge of floodwaters may sometimes be provided in a separate structure where circumstances are appropriate. Since power development on a national scale involves damming of the larger catchments, the flood spillage provision must usually be correspondingly large. Often the spillway is a part of the dam where the crest is made lower than it is elsewhere; for thin dams (e.g., arch type) the outflowing cascade of water may be arranged to spring clear of the structure (e.g., Manorburn concrete arch dam), though it is more usual for the spillway lip and outflow surface to be specially shaped to conform to the natural overflow jet profile, known as an “ogee” type.

Spillway openings in dam crests (or as separate structures) may be relatively narrow and deep and fitted with gates—the more usual case in modern practice; or they may be made much wider and shallower and be unobstructed, these being known as the free-overflow type (e.g., Waitaki dam).

For dams of any but minor size the traditional building material in older countries has been masonry, later succeeded by concrete; these materials in appropriate structural forms have been associated with the development of sites favourable to their support and economy. Comprised in this group are dam forms designated as mass gravity, massive buttress or hollow gravity, arch and arch-gravity types (both simple and vaulted or domed), thin multiple arch and buttress, slab and buttress or Ambersen dams, typically in relatively narrow valley sites. Not all of these types are represented in New Zealand.

Expanding development in New Zealand has forced attention on the wider sites and on those less favourable in respect of rigidity and strength of foundation rock; hence there has been a significant general trend to the embankment type of dam built of soils, alluvials, and rockfills variously compacted. Nevertheless, in some countries (notably Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France), the economic use of concrete arch forms for wide valleys is favoured, provided there are no foundation weaknesses.

The bolder use of embankment types of dam, often of considerable height, has been conditioned to an extent by the modern expansion of the science of soil mechanics. Progress in the development of efficient means for the excavating, transporting, and compacting of rock and earth materials has also exerted a profound effect. Whereas costs of all other forms of construction have risen severalfold in money value, the costs of earth handling have been kept to much the same levels as in the days of the pick and shovel, and even in some cases, lower. Thus it is now possible to plan such projects involving earth-works on an unprecedented scale. Moreover, with the increasing difficulty of finding dam sites favourable to the traditional forms of construction, the development of this new method is timely. The Benmore power project on the Waitaki River is one instance. A site below the confluence of the Ahuriri tributary was preferable because of the greater power from the added inflow, but the Waitaki valley is relatively wide there and basement rock is not of good quality, thus indicating an embankment type of dam. To give some idea of the work involved, it may be stated that in operations associated with foundation excavations for required structures and construction of the main wall in rolled earth and other materials, more than 20 million cu. yds. were handled, yet in its economic aspect in relation to the power output, this project can rank as one of the most favourable in the country.