90 The Water Supply of Sydney. 



end of 1824. In the Gazette of March 18th of the latter year 

 we read : — " As we have had hut little rain since July, water has 

 heen scarce in town ; but then it should be gratefully remembered 

 what a providential supply Blackwattle Swamp furnishes in the 

 most dry season. It would be well to build a reservoir or tanks 

 at this spot .... The kindness of the Government will, it is 

 humbly presumed, ever secure this spot from the clutches of 

 private individuals." Of course the kindness of the Grovern- 

 ment did no such thing ; and, indeed, it would have been utterly 

 impossible to preserve the purity of the streams that drain the 

 area on which Sydney stands ; but had anything like the same 

 care been bestowed on the waters that drain into the north side 

 of Botany Bay as was fruitlessly lavished on the Tank Stream, 

 Sydney might have been abundantly supplied at the present day. 

 And yet, perhaps, it was a mere question of time, and it might 

 have been no more possible to preserve permanently the drainage 

 area of Shea's Creek (the chief of the Botany waters lost to the 

 public) than it was to save from defilement the streams flowing 

 into Darling Harbour and Sydney Cove. 



The drought of 1823-4 — we learn that 35 inches of rain fell 

 in the former year, and only about 19 inches in the latter 

 {Gazette, 10th March, 1825) — drew public attention more 

 strongly than ever to the deficient supply of water ; and at the 

 Quarter Sessions commencing on November 9th, 1825, the pre- 

 sentment of the Grand Jury contained the following passage . — 

 " The Grand Jurors have to lament that their repeated present- 

 ments of the inadequate supply of Sydney with water have been 

 hitherto disregarded. They have, therefore, again strongly to 

 urge the indispensable necessity of some immediate measures on 

 this subject. The principal stream whence the inhabitants are 

 at present supplied with this necessary article they find still un- 

 closed, and polluted by common sewers, and every description of 

 filthy pools emptying themselves into it, which must render it of 

 highly deleterious quality." And at the Quarter Sessions, in 

 February, 1826, the subject of the water supply is again brought 

 forward in similar terms. The despairing attempts to preserve 

 the Tank Stream, and the pathetic way in which the Gazette 

 holds up its condition, have not a little of a comic element. 

 "We actually beheld," says the Gazette of 1st March, 1826, 

 " upwards of half a dozen boys bathing in the very stream from 

 which, it is most probable, the next moment many of the inhabi- 

 tants of Sydney were obliged to supply themselves with water 

 for culinary purposes." These representations, equally with the 

 authoritative orders of Government, were all in vain. Nothing 

 could save the Tank Stream, Its inevitable destiny was to be- 

 come a filthy sewer, and, in that capacity, it has long been covered 

 over and hidden from public view. After 1826 I find no farther 



