Failure of the Yan Yean Reservoir. 113 
engineer having reported very favourably of Mr. Blackburn’s 
gravitation scheme, and having condemned all other plans for 
supplying the city from the Yarra, they determined forthwith 
to commence the works at Yan Yean. 
I have always regretted the step taken by the Commis- 
sioners in adopting the Yan Yean scheme. 
In the month of February, last year, I published a letter 
for the purpose of vindicating Professor Smith’s preference 
of the Yarra scheme, and I endeavored to show that the 
Yarra water was necessarily purer than the Plenty water, 
and that the latter would be very much deteriorated by beg 
transferred into the Yan Yean swamp, and, being there de- 
prived of that constant and continuous motion which is its very 
life, that it would become incurably infected with microscopic 
animal and vegetable productions, which no filtration could 
remedy. 
I described the plan adopted by the city of Edinburgh, 
which obtains its supply direct from the Crawley Springs, 
without subjecting the water to the injurious influences of 
exposure in a large open reservoir. And I urged the great 
advantage of possessing an unlimited supply of this necessary 
of life which the Plenty could not afford; and, as objections 
had been taken to all other Yarra schemes, on the ground of 
their impracticability, and the annual expenses attending 
them, I ventured to propose a simple scheme for bringing the 
Yarra water into Melbourne, on the gravitation principle, by 
means of a tunnel carried to the base of a shaft to be sunk 
alongside the Eastern Hill reservoir; which would thus have 
the effect of diminishing as far as possible the expense of 
pumping and management; and I showed that the annual 
expense of a pumping scheme for 100,000 inhabitants would 
cost a half-penny per week, per head; and that any expense 
was of trifling importance when the health and comfort of a 
populous city were involved. . 
I regret that I did not further prosecute my inquiries at 
that time, but the truth is that my letter having received no 
attention or sympathy in any quarter, I saw no prospect of 
ee off the evil which I believed to be impending over 
the city. 
- I still object to the Yan Yean scheme—1l. Because of the 
enormous expense. In consequence of the discovery of the 
Gold-fields, labor is now at a much higher rate than when it 
was first projected by Mr. Blackburn. The Commissioners’ 
estimate for the works is £650,000, of which £400,000 have 
M 
