RAMBLES ROUND DUNEDIN. 207 



have never ceased to be amazed at the want of knowledge 

 and of foresight displayed in connection with this reservoir 

 and this not by the municipal authorities alone but by 

 the residents generally. Let me just state a few facts 

 for your edification, for though we have come to find 

 "books in the running brooks," we can hardly avoid find- 

 ing a good many other things as well, and these things 

 must be spoken about sooner or later. The reservoir when 

 full holds some 51,000,000 gallons, and the water passes 

 directly, without any attempt at filtration, into a 12-inch 

 cast-iron pipe. This main pipe can deliver at the city 

 boundary without any extra pressure about 4,000,000 

 gallons in twenty-four hours. It is not, of course, run at 

 this rate. Thus, as a case in point, I made inquiry in 

 former years, and found that in August and September 

 of 1884 about 4,000,000 gallons per week, or 570,000 gallons 

 per twenty-four hours, were withdrawn from the reservoir. 

 The working level of the water in the valve tower is 

 372 feet above the lowest point of Dunedin, so that the 

 highest levels of the city are not reached by the water. 

 Now, I do not wish to bore you with statistics, and yet 

 a few figures are necessary if we would justify the state- 

 ment that we have been lacking in foresight. If we take 

 the average rainfall of Dunedin at 45 inches per annum 

 and probably it is a good deal more on the slopes of 

 Flagstaff Hill than our records of past years give for the 

 town then there fall into the watershed of Ross's Creek 

 every year somewhere about 1,650,000,000 gallons of water. 

 If we make a very liberal allowance for evaporation and 

 overflows in heavy rains, and assume that only one third 

 of the total fall passes into the reservoir, we should find 

 nearly 550,000,000 gallons as the annual supply, or over 

 10,000,000 gallons per week. The amount actually supplied 

 in 1884 was estimated at 202,000,000 gallons, or much less 

 than half the estimated amount, and the supply has 

 diminished during these last years very considerably. 

 The water is simply not there to draw out. No steps 

 appear to have been taken, as should have been done from 

 the outset, to so secure the whole area of the watershed 



