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A total of 4,200,000 superficial feet of timber has now been sawn at the Mangakino Sawmill. The average number of men employed for the year was 1,214. The sealing of the Tokoroa-Maraetai Road has been completed. Construction work has been carried out on the Mangakino-Whakamaru Road. Piers of the Mangakino Bridge were completed and falsework and boxing for the deck has been erected. Mangakino Village. —Work done during the year includes construction work on the administrative building, staff hostel, cinema, hospital, shops, and other miscellaneous buildings. Karapiro.—With a few minor exceptions, the finishing-work on this station was completed during the year. Work has included the provision of a floating boom, the grassing and fencing of slopes and other areas, and the tiling of the power-house floor, which is now in progress. Some modifications to the screen cleaner and to the siphons were also made as a result of experience in operation. Roads on the left bank and the car-park were sealed, and the low-level road to the power-house prepared for sealing, and lighting standards completed. Efficiency tests were carried out by the Design Office staff in November and the results have been analysed and reported. The average number of men employed during the year was 50; at present only 30 are employed, mainly on the tiling-work. Waikaremoana. —The first machine at Kaitawa was tested and operating by April, 1948, and the second by October, 1948. Work during the year has included the completion of the second penstock and sufficient work at the intake to permit operating over a wide range of lake-levels. The penstocks have been painted, areas grassed and trees and shrubs planted, and general finishing-work at the power-house carried out. The work of sealing leaks in the lake was started during the year with the clearing of driftwood timber from the areas and crevices to be sealed by a diver. Materials* have also been prepared and stock-piled ready for forming the sealing blanket. Work remaining includes the completion of the intake to enable the full designed range of lake-levels to be utilized and the construction of the permanent spillway at the lake outlet. Modifications to the jet dispersers at the power-house were found necessary following a series of tests, and arrangements for this are in hand. Some temporary buildings and workshops remaining from the construction work at Kaitawa are now being removed. No. 3 penstock at Tuai was painted internally during this year. A total of 90 men are employed at the site for the work now remaining. Cobb River Power Development.—Following the decision taken last year to build an earth dam at Cobb, work has proceeded on the revised scheme and good progress has been maintained. The dewatering drive, to drain water from the dam-site has been completed and lined and a* new 7 ft. by 6 ft. intake tunnel excavated in the hillside in the right bank. This tunnel, 1,500 ft. long, will connect a new intake upstream of the dam, in the bed of the future lake, with the existing intake tunnel, which is at present fed by a concrete pipeline laid in the floor of the valley. This pipe-line must be removed before construction of the spillway and dam can proceed, and the new permanent tunnel will provide the by-pass, during construction, which will maintain a flow of water to the Cobb Power-house. The new intake tunnel is to be equipped with control gates and screens located in a shaft upstream of the dam, and excavation of this shaft has been completed and the work of lining the tunnel has started.

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