590 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 



2.— THE HISTORY OF CIVIL ENGINEERING IN NEW 

 SOUTH WALES. 



By W. H. Warren, M.I.C.E., Wh. Sc, Professor of Civil and 



Mechanical Engineering, University of Sydney. 



ROADS AND RAILWAYS IN THIS COLONY. 



It is proposed in the following paper to describe the most 

 important works in connection with Civil Engineei'ing which have 

 been executed in the colony during the first hundred yeai's of its 

 existence. 



ROADS. 



Roadmaking, so far as establishing a line of communication 

 between places where settlement had commenced, would be one 

 of the first engineering works which the early colonists would find 

 it necessary to undertake. The Great Dividing Range trending, 

 roughly speaking, almost parallel with the coast, with the spurs 

 which run out from its eastei'n and western slopes, gives rise to 

 obstacles which have to be surmounted in establishing a line of 

 communication between the coastal distiicts and the interior. 

 One of the earliest works of this nature is the western road over 

 the Blue Mountains to Bathurst, first surveyed by Mr. Evans and 

 opened by Mr. Cox in 1815, the descent being made by a pass down 

 Mount York, and road via Fish River to Bathurst Plains. The 

 direction of this road was afterwards changed by Sir Thomas 

 Mitchell, to rotote via Mount Victoria, and was carried through 

 Bowenfells and across the Dividing Range at the Cox River, where 

 large cuttings were made. Another line of communication to the 

 western interior was soon after opened up along the Dividing Range 

 between Windsor and the Vale of Clwydd, traversing the main ridge 

 between the Grose and the Colo Rivers, via Mount Tomah, much after 

 the same fashion in which the Main Western Road, which was just 

 opened, passes along the ridge between the Grose and the Cox Rivers. 

 Extensive improvements have recently been made on this line, and 

 it is now practicable for vehicular trafiic. Further improvements 

 at the Kurrajong and in the neighbourhood of Mount Tomah are 

 contemplated to render this road safer and easier to travel. 



The main north road from Sydney originally passed via Glades- 

 ville punt and Dural to Wiseman's Ferry on the Hawkesbury River ; 

 but the direction of this road has been altered so as to pass over the 

 Iron Cove and G ladesville bridges, and the punt has been abolished. 

 At Wiseman's Ferry, some of the heaviest and most costly road- 

 work of the colony was executed by means of convict labour, 



