Section J. 



ARCHITECTURE AND ENGINEERING. 



President of the Section : 

 MR. C. NAPIER BELL, C.E. 



1.— THE WATER SUPPLIES TO RURAL TOWN- 

 SHIPS IN TASMANIA. 



By C. WORDSWORTH JAMES, Assoc. M. Inst. C.E. 



Tasmania is divided into eighteen counties, and these counties 

 are subdivided for the purposes of local government into 

 nineteen rural municipalities and fourteen police and municipal 

 districts. The latter are more immediately under the control 

 of the Central Government, but with certain conditions can 

 be constituted into rural municipalities. 



Thei-e are tvi^o cities, one hundred and eleven proclaimed 

 towns, and four hundred and twenty-five villages or settle- 

 ments. 



Of the one hundred and eleven towns only about 50 per 

 cent, are of any consequence, the remainder exist pretty 

 much in name only. This is frequently the case in the 

 colonies. Townships have been laid out and proclaimed, and 

 allotments have been sold at a period, perhaps, when there 

 was every promise of a rapid growth and settlement, owing 

 probably to local mineral discoveries or other anticipated 

 sources of industry. The promised " Eldorado " has proved 

 a failure ; the locality is deserted and allowed to subside 

 almost to its normal state. Several so-called townships in 

 Tasmania can boast only of a dwelling or two, others, to the 

 author's knowledge, showing nothing but a single cottage or 

 a deserted and ruined hut. 



The two cities of Hobart and Launceston enjoy their own 

 water supplies in fair abundance. The former city is enabled 

 to extend its supply to four, and the latter to two suburban 

 towns. Besides these there are only a few of the remaining 

 towns that are provided with a local permanent supply. That 

 at New Norfolk is the only one where any system of water 

 supply by gravitation is conducted, and that was probably 

 undertaken on account of its being originally a government 



