safety. The length of the Viaduct is 690 feet, divided into eight spans, the widest of which stretches 106 feet, the others 66 feet The height of the line in the centre from the bed of the creek is 154 feet, and the width of the platform or carriage way is 12 feet 8 inches. The pier at the base has a width of 33 feet. The structure, viewed from the ground around, looks slender indeed, and many timorous passengers would shudder at the thought of crossing it at an ordinary rate of speed, and would be very chary about committing themselves to the experiment of so doing. Strength and durability are not, however, to be estimated by bulk. The secret of success lies in the mathematical accuracy which Mr. Ussher, assistant engineer, has displayed in calculating the strength of the bearing points, the truthfulness and precision with which each part has been put together, and the trustworthiness of the material employed. The total cost of the Viaduct was about £22,500.
The Railway Commissioners now carry their patrons much further on between eminences which, in other countries, would be called mountains, but here, only ridges, along the banks of the river Taieri, once in its day a pellucid water, fit habitat for the trout or any other of the finny tribe, now, alas, a thick "drumlie" current, into which one would hesitate to dip lest he should emerge therefrom with the complexion of a Chinese. The gold diggings, away up in the distant Naseby and Kyeburn Districts, and others nearer hand, have caused this radical change.
Seated in a railway carriage, bearing us onward at 15 miles per hour, sometimes in the open air, at other times momentarily under ground, still wherever the eye can see, there is that accompanying Taieri sluggishly moving along with scarcely a ripple on its turbid surface to indicate that life or vitality existed at all within its bosom.
The railway has not yet reached Middlemarch, the first stopping place in the open strath that lies beyond the rocky gorge, but even had it done so we should not have proceeded further. So returning down the line again we now leave the train at Mullocky Gully, where horses having been previously arranged for, we take to the saddle, and follow the ideal road line (which is neither formed nor fenced in), along the top of the range, where the traveller may revel amid scenes which even Turner's wildest
