192 E. LOGAN JACK, LL.D., F.G.S. ETC., ON 



subject. I was one of the initiators of the movement for 

 artesian water, having had five or six years' experience in the 

 United States of America, following on a previous professional 

 education in England, and when I arrived at Victoria and 

 Melbourne in 1877, I and my colleagues did all we possibly could 

 to get the pastoralists to take up this question of the vital 

 importance of supply of water to the land. Unfortunately in 

 Victoria there was no indication at the time of deep artesian 

 water being there, and we had to put up with the " sub-artesian " 

 or shallower water. From that expeiuence I turned my attention 

 to Queensland, and in 1883 I arrived there in the Government 

 service. Working as we did with boring operations for the sub- 

 artesian water, there were very clear indications of the existence 

 of the deeper artesian supplies, and, as Dr. Jack has mentioned, 

 there was an ag-itation in Brisbane at that time, in 1883, to 

 further the deeper boring for artesian water, and I was connected 

 with it as a hydraulic engineer. The matter went on until we 

 arrived finally at the figures that the author has given, which are 

 the official figures. Of course the work that had been carried out, 

 the iso-potential map of Mr. Henderson, and the equi- 

 altitudinal map of Mr. Cameron, were very good and necessary, 

 but those had been based upon the actual borings ; the data that 

 had been arrived at by those gentlemen had been got from the 

 actual borings themselves. I merely mention this so that some 

 credit may be given to the actual borers themselves. (Hear, 

 hear.) As far as the results go and the utilization of the water 

 i-esulting from these bores, we know that over 800 bores have 

 been put down, but only 615 are actually supplying up to the last 

 report in 1901, yielding 351,000,000 gallons per day. That is 

 an enormous output of water. Then the question arises, what has 

 been done with that water ? The water has been simply used for 

 the direct requirements of the squatters in keeping the stock 

 alive. In normal seasons the grass is of very highly nutritious 

 quality, and in normal weather Queensland is probably as fine a 

 feeding country as any in the world ; but unfortunately droughts 

 come occasionally, and then the whole country is dried up. All 

 that the squatters have done, in fact, with that water has been to 

 cut channels from the bores and lead the water into the different 

 paddocks, so that at least the stock should be able to quench their 

 thirst, otherwise they would have died right out. But having 



