UTILISING WASTE UNDERGROUND WATER. 573 



As however, our conditions are ditierent to tliose of the 

 countries just named, it appears to me necessary to examine the 

 nuestion entirely from the standpoint of our own conditions ; in 

 some of these countries the rainfall is much larger than here, 

 and in others, though the rainfall is no greater, yet the rivers are 

 fed by the melting snow on the mountains ; notwithstanding 

 these climatic diti'erences, I have no reason to doubt the con- 

 clusion that the underground supply of water is of such a great 

 extent as to make the question of utilization one of the most 

 important questions for this and the various countries of 

 Austi'alia. 



III. A SCHEME FOR EXTENTIOX OF THE ADELAIDE WATERWORKS. 



The urgent need of an addition to the water supply is a 

 question which has not yet been sufficiently realized by the 

 citizens of Adelaide, Port Adelaide, and other suburban towns. 



As to the present source of the supply for the Adelaide water- 

 works, leaving out of account the small supply from other sources, 

 the water is all taken from the River Torrens in the winter 

 months, viz., from May to November inclusive, and in these months 

 reservoirs are all tilled for storage for the summer season ; 

 from December to May the supply is drawn from the storage in 

 the reservoirs alone. This, then, is the key question to the whole 

 position, how to augment the supply during the summer months, 

 December to May ? It is evident that if permanent springs can 

 be found with a sufficient supply to supplement the present storage 

 of the reservoirs through these months, the problem can be solved 

 in a simple and inexpensive manner, and it is to this problem I 

 have been devoting my attention for some years, as already stated. 

 In the course of my investigations I have examined the River 

 Torrens at various points from near its source to the Reedbeds, 

 and endeavoured to obtain a general knowledge of the river as a 

 whole. The catchment area is about one hundred and thirty 

 square miles, and assuming the average rainfall at twenty-live 

 inches per annum, the total quantity of water falling upon the 

 area is about 47,000 million gallons ; twenty-two per cent, of this 

 flowing in the river as estimated for Barossa, this would amount 

 to about 10,000 million gallons, leaving the enormous quantity of 

 37,000 million gallons as waste water. Assuming that one-third 

 of this waste is due to evaporation and absorption, then we have 

 no less than about 24,000 million gallons passing underground 

 annually, or about twenty-three times the present capacity of the 

 Adelaide Waterworks. 



With respect to the underground waters near the river, so far 

 as the evidence goes, it appears to me they lie much nearer the 

 level of the river bed than is the case in some of our northern 

 streams, which I have examined. At Athelstone, the first place 



