PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. tok 
Cheapness, however, won the day, and the flooded land was 
purchased in blocks at the price of a bottle of rum, by ignorant 
new chums, and on it the town was built. Every few years the 
river comes down a banker, covers the town several feet deep in 
mud and water, and leaves behind a legacy of who can say how 
much suffering and death. Now the inhabitants are petitioning 
for extensive works of embankment, and in course of time will, 
no doubt, obtain a large grant of public money for the purpose. 
If surface unsuitability is thus ignored, what may we expect 
when the subsoil is in question? Its importance as bearing on 
the health of a town can scarcely be exaggerated, but it rarely 
receives a thought. As a flagrant example, I will describe a 
noted health resort. Picturesque hills surround a green valley on 
almost every side Thesurface soil is loamy and fairly pervious, but 
at eight to twelve feet in depth an impervious bed of clay under- 
lies the whole of the valley. At any point water may be reached 
by digging to that depth, and above this clay bed the town is 
laid out. At present it is little more than a large village, but 
when its vacant lots are filled up, and the surface soil is choked 
by impurities, what will be the death-rate of that place? An 
expensive system of Jand drainage at the public cost will be an 
absolute necessity to palliate the evil of wrong selection, though it 
can never be a cure, and the worst of it is that a few miles away, 
on the most direct route, there is land possessing all the requisites 
of a healthy site, except that of railway communication, which 
was engineered on to the inferior land by political influence. 
Assuming, however, the natural healthiness of the site, its 
artificial preservation when occupied by a large population is the 
next point to consider. Three conditions are essential viz.:—An 
abundant supply of good water, at a sufficient elevation and 
within a reasonable distance, adequate surface drainage for storm 
waters, and levels that will permit of a system of underground 
sewers with a suitable outlet and area of land for the disposal of 
the effluents. How few of our towns possess all these, and how 
many lack them ? 
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UTILISATION. 
The typical mode of sub-division I have already alluded to, 
and it is very useful from the “pay your money, take your 
choice,” and “do as you like” point of view. Blind chance 
in such a case determines the future of each street of block, and 
the game of “beggar my neighbour” is too often played by 
adjoining owners with opposing views or interests in the buildings 
they erect. It isacase of individualism run mad. And with 
no better result than that in the course of years, and after many 
rebuildings, some kind of order and classification will have been 
evolved out of the chaos of the commencement. Whereas it 
