112 Floods on the River Barwon. 



small, as I maintain them to have been at Geelong, disasters 

 of unparalleled magnitude may be the result. The problem 

 that has been presented at Geelong will recur from time to 

 time as our railways and roads extend, and the damage to 

 property, in the event of insufficient waterway being 

 provided, will increase indefinitely as population becomes 

 denser, and the margins of our rivers become fringed with 

 mills and factories and dwellings. Hence it is of the highest 

 importance that a proper scientific system of dealing with 

 the question should be adopted generally by the profession. 



The enquiry before us is this, was the department's design 

 for the Barwon Bridge right or wrong, sufficient or in- 

 sufficient, and was the flooding of the Woollen Mills 

 independent or not of the presence of the railway works? 

 The former view was strenuously maintained by the 

 Government witnesses at the trial, including amongst their 

 number the gentleman at present occupying the honourable 

 and important position of Engineer in Chief of Victorian 

 Railways. The latter is Mr. Culcheth's opinion and my own. 



Without going into the arithmetical details, I would say 

 at the outset, that my own calculations, made prior to the 

 publication of Mr. Culcheth's results, agree very closely with 

 his conclusions as to the discharge of the river, and the 

 extent to which the water rose in the mills above what 

 would have been its level had the railway works not been 

 in existence. This latter amount is given by him as 3.70 

 feet, and by me as 8.50 feet. 



In order to verify this result as far as possible by direct 

 experiment, a model was made representing, to scale, the bed 

 and valley of the river for a distance of about a mile and a 

 half above and below the railway works, and corresponding 

 in this respect with Mr. Culcheth's lithographed section. 

 Water was caused to flow over this model until a flood was 

 produced, corresponding with the actual flood marks of 1880. 

 The railway works made in a separate piece were then 

 removed, and the water fell through a height of 4 feet, 

 according to the scale of the model. On replacing the 

 wooden representative of the railway bank, the water rose 

 again to its original position. The experiment was repeated 

 a considerable number of times with identical results, and 

 taken in conjunction with the calculations, establishes most 

 conclusively the truth of the proposition, that had the 

 railway bank not been in existence, the water in the factories 

 would have been from three to four feet lower than it 



