Snow in Dunedin and Central
On Saturday afternoon a few eddying flakes of snow were to be seen, but they had passed away by evening. Under cover of darkness, however, the snow commenced to fall in earnest, and the sun rose on a thick white mantle of powdery snow. There was a good covering on the surrounding hills, and in the upper reaches of the town the snow lingered all day long.
Explorers begin voyage
London, September 5: An adventurous voyage to New Zealand by Mr W. Unitt and his daughter Dora in the nine-ton yawl Merganser began from Plymouth. A crowd gathered at the spot from which the Pilgrim Fathers sailed, and cheered as the yawl left the harbour. Mr Unitt and his daughter were in the best of spirits, and were looking forward with pleasure to a trip alone, except for a cat.
The first ports of call will be Cape Finisterre, Oporto, and Lisbon. The voyagers hope to reach Capetown by October. Mr Unitt said he would sail the boat himself at night, and Dora would sail it by day.
Steep grade: change down
When a car is provided with good brakes, and more especially with four-wheel brakes, some drivers are inclined to get careless and take risks when motoring in hilly country. Every car should have brakes powerful enough to hold it on the steepest hill, but these brakes should not be used for long periods, because extended use causes heat and the brake linings may become burnt or glazed and lose their gripping power as a clutch will do. The car should be kept in hand by means of the engine, and the brakes used in emergencies. On moderate hills the engine can control the car in top gear, but on bad hills it cannot.
Generally speaking the man who uses his brakes least is the best. Every sudden application of the brakes is generally caused by a mistake on the part of some person or other - maybe the driver of the car, possibly the driver of some other vehicle, or it may be caused by animals straying on the road.
Tidal harbour or locked loch?
A good many schemes have been propounded by engineers and others for the improvement of Otago Harbour. That submitted by Captain Coll McDonald at the meeting of the Harbour Board last week is interesting by virtue of its originality. Briefly put, to establish a lock or locks inside the entrance of the harbour, and thus turn it into a non-tidal lake in which the usual high-water depth would be normally maintained. He estimates that this could be done for about £500,000, which is of course a handsome sum, but he points to the never-ending expenditure in which the board is involved by the dredging which is at present necessary, and contrasts the results in the permanently increased depth of the channel from the Heads to Dunedin which would be secured under his scheme. Roughly, the tidal rise and fall within the harbour is six feet. Captain McDonald proposes to eliminate this, to keep the harbour at high-water depth of 35 feet to Port Chalmers and 27 feet in the upper harbour - and we should have one of the most beautiful harbours in the world.
— ODT, 7.9.1925
Compiled by Peter Dowden
