330 A HISTOEY OF THE COLONY OF VICTORIA 



of the public service it took some time for the Government to get 

 the matter well in hand, but before he left the colony Mr. Latrobe 

 performed the ceremony of turning the first sod of the Yan Yean 

 Water Works. It was completed in a little over two years at a 

 cost of about 660,000, and furnished an ample supply of excep- 

 tionally pure water from a reservoir in the mountains twenty-four 

 miles north-east of Melbourne. 



The lamentable want of a proper system of sewerage remained 

 a reproach for nearly fifty years after this period. The low level of 

 a large part of the city, only a few feet above high water mark, 

 presented many engineering difficulties in the way of underground 

 drainage, while the unavoidable soakage of thousands of cesspits 

 tended to pollute the whole area, and poison wells and underground 

 tanks. A system of open channels on each side of the roadway was 

 long in vogue, and in rainy weather they became in some places 

 dangerous torrents. The centre of Elizabeth Street, down which 

 there originally flowed a tributary of the Yarra, frequently reverted 

 to its primal uses, with the difference that what once formed a 

 rushing rivulet at the bottom of a water- worn gully was converted 

 into a broad turbulent canal, spreading across the whole width of 

 the street, and invading the shops on either side. Great destruc- 

 tion of goods was suffered by the shopkeepers, and more than 

 one life was lost by individuals being swept down the current to 

 the river. All these defects were eventually overcome, but the 

 engineering difficulties of the situation involved long years of delay, 

 costly experiments and a final outlay to be counted by millions 

 sterling. 



The first great flood in the Yarra since the settlement occurred 

 on Christmas Eve, 1839, after a three days' steady downpour of rain. 

 It swept away the punt, demolished the wharves in course of con- 

 struction, flooded out all the brickmakers on the south bank and 

 carried their dwellings and belongings in a tangled heap of ruins out 

 into the bay. On the north side the water swept Flinders Street 

 from end to end. Two or three lives were lost and a general feel- 

 ing of panic prevailed. In 1842, 1844, 1848 and 1849 the same 

 experience was repeated, each time with more disastrous results in 

 the destruction of property ; for notwithstanding the manifest risk 



