The Lochaber HydroElectric Power Undertaking. By Dr. BRYSSON CuNNINGHAM. rrHE remarkable engineering enterprise known as considerable depths, of the order of three to four the Lochaber HydroElectric Power Under-hundred feet. The catchment area of the district taking, the first and main portion of which was covers slightly more than three hundred square brought to a successful completion early in the miles. • The average annual rainfall reaches a maxiyear, embodies a number of novel and in-mum of 160 in. at the top of Ben Nevis and falls to tere.stmg features which justify a more extended about 40 in. at Laggan Bridge. The minimum and notice than could be given in the brief paragraph in maximum recorded on the summit of Ben Nevis are NATURE of Aug. 9, p. 213, describing the visit of 108 in. and 240 in. respectively. In records cover-H.R.H. the Duke of York to the works of the ing a period of nineteen years, the wettest month Lochaber Water Power Company. The scheme, produced 48•3 in. and the wettest day 7•3 in. which is one of the most remarkable of its kind and So far, operations have been confined to the

In response to a request by the PoJlution Advisory Council, the vegetation of the Tarawera River was surveyed before the Tasman Pulp and Paper Mill at Kawerau began discharging effluent into the river late in 1955.After complaints in 1956 that efTluent was affecting plants in the river, two brief foJlow-up surveys were made in June and July of that year. Flooding clearly had affected the distribution of water plants, and beds of watercress (Nasturtium sp.) had been buried by silt. Because of changes caused by floods no conclusions about the short-term effect of effluent could be drawn. The survey included aquatic vegetation, and the vegetation on islands, berms, and stop-banks. These latter two were included because both play an important role in confining the river to its bed and their stability depends on the plant cover. AUTHORS' NOTEIn 1955 Botany Division. DSIR was asked by the Pollution Advisory Council to report on the vegetation of the Tarawera River before the Tasman Pulp and Paper MiIl at Kawerau began operations in the second half of 1955 and discharged effluent into the river. The field work was done between 26 May 1955 and 2 June 1955 by N.T.M. and just over a year later, between 9 and 10 June 1956 and on 24 July, brief follow-up surveys were made by B.T.C. in response to complaints that pollutants were already affecting vegetation in the river, particularly watercress (Nasturtium sp.). Effluent was then being discharged directly into the river because a holding pond had coJlapsed and was not functioning. During the follow-up surveys the sites recorded in 1955 were located and any

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