Reclamation of Batman's Swamp. 15 



Most of you are, I dare say, aware, and certainly our 

 friends from North Melbourne and the University, that the 

 immediate neighborhoods of North Melbourne, Parkside, the 

 University, and the southern confines of the Royal Park, have 

 been a long time, and are at present, polluted by the City 

 Manure Depot. Night-soil and offal are sent out in large 

 quantities from the city to that locality, and there stored in 

 vast heaps and left to give off malaria throughout the neigh- 

 bourhood, and no effective means have been taken to retain 

 the value of the manure thus deposited by fixing the ammo- 

 nia with charcoal. On the contrary, the sun, wind, and rain 

 rob it of its fertilizing powers, and a useful and valuable 

 manure becomes a positive and dangerous nuisance. The 

 material stimulants necessary for the proper growth of vege- 

 tables and cereals for the support of the animal economy, 

 become, from mismanagement and misapplication, a nursery 

 for the seeds of disease, and are changed to a curse instead of 

 a blessing. 



Referring to the last clause of the paragraph before quoted, 

 ec Whether or not any alteration can be advantageously made 

 in the site of the depot V I would suggest the removal of 

 the whole of the offensive material for the purpose of in- 

 creasing, by proper application, the fertilizing power of the 

 ground thus reclaimed. 



You will observe from the plan that I have shown, two 

 main drains or canals, one for carrying down the flood waters 

 of the Moonee Ponds district, and the other from the west 

 end of Little Bourke-street, for the purpose of transporting 

 the fluid sewage of the city, or upon it by a flat-bottom barge, 

 the more solid material and other offal. 



By having a depot in the locality, the night-carts could be 

 emptied of their contents into barges prepared for the pur- 

 pose, and transported by means of these canals to any 

 required portion of the swamp. 



This easy means of getting rid of the night soil and other 

 manure in the more immediate neighbourhood of the city, 

 would in itself confer a benefit upon the public at large, inas- 

 much as the cost of cleanliness would be considerably 

 lessened, whilst any existing nuisance would be turned to a 

 useful and reproductive purpose. 



In a previous paper, read by me before this Institute, I 

 suggested the propriety of the Sewerage and Water Commis- 

 sion conveying the whole of the storm water, falling north of 

 La Trobe-street, into the swamp, by means of a tunnel run- 



