110 The Past and Present of the Port of Melbourne, 



Art. XXIII, — On the Past and Present of the Port of 

 Melbourne, and Proposed Works for its Improvement. 



By T. E. Rawlinson, Esq. 



[Eead 13th December, 1875.] 



In resuming the question of harbour accommodation for 

 Victoria, after a lapse of twenty years, it is with advantages 

 which did not exist then. 



It was pointed out that Hobson's Bay and Port Phillip 

 Gulf, if left to natural agencies, would in time become things 

 of the past ; but it was little anticipated that such would be 

 so far facilitated bv future harbour improvements. 



Whilst left to "itself Port Phillip Gulf was slowly but 

 surely silting up, in accordance with natural laws, as other 

 gulfs and inland seas have filled before ; and evidence of 

 this fact exists in the made lands now lying between 

 Sandridge and Flemington, whilst the lines of soundings in 

 the bay indicate the same continuous action of shoaling 

 and filling, partly caused by the littoral drift created by 

 prevailing winds from the south and south west, and partly 

 by the deposit brought down by the rivers and creeks being 

 precipitated in the bay. 



The increase of land, owing to drift from the south east, 

 is shown by the make of foreshore at Sandridge ; but the 

 shoaling from river silt was not so perceptible, owing to the 

 river being permitted to sweep past the Williamstown shore 

 and precipitate in the waste of waters southwards towards 

 Point Cook, and possibly with certain winds towards Brighton ; 

 whereas now, the recently constructed stone dykes at the 

 river mouth has diverted the Yarra waters direct into 

 Hobson's Bay, where the current is rapidly lost, and pre- 

 cipitation takes place there. 



To better understand the question, it will be well to take 

 a retrospect of Hobson's Bay in 1853, and compare it with 

 the bay as existent in J 875. 



In 1853, with the exception of one or two small boat piers 

 at Williamstown, which lay almost out of the stream, the 

 waters of the River Yarra had a clean sweep along the land, 

 with a sharp set of current around Point Gellibrand, leaving 

 a comparatively clean foreshore ; whilst on the Sandridge side 

 there existed the Government and the Railway Piers, and a 



