42 STDITET WATER SUPPLY BY GEAYITATION. 



soundness of my theory and premises, and I felt that it only 

 required a survey of those parts to establish my assertions and 

 belief in the availability of the vphole of that 'country to bring 

 about a grand water supply for Sydney by gravitation. 



Such being my first thoughts of obtaining a rich supply of 

 water by a very short cut, I determined to be reticent on the 

 point until the regular survey of the Illawarra Eailway should 

 have progressed far enough to satisfy me that it must be an 

 approved success. I waited for the issue for six months after 

 the survey had commenced. My reason for this was that the 

 establishment of the Illawarra Railway would be almost indispen- 

 sable to my water supply scheme, not only by reason of the 

 means it would afford of bringing up heavy pipes and large 

 supplies of Portland cement and other materials for the water- 

 works, but also by reason of the bridges that would necessarily 

 cross George's River and Cook's Eiver, and which would become 

 the immediate means of conducting the water mains over those 

 broad rivers on their course to Sydney. 



All practical difGiculties in the development of the Illawarra 

 Railway line being apparently at an end, and being so firmly con- 

 vinced that it would be adopted, by reason of its own immensely 

 intrinsic value to the Colony, I resolved at once, and in May last, 

 to register my thoughts for the gravitation water supply, by 

 writing an official letter to the Colonial Secretary, in which I set 

 forth my project in the form I expected it would so assuredly 

 result in, after I should have made a survey of the adjacent 

 country. The season of the year being then too inclement 

 for a survey in the exposed region of Madden' s Plains, I 

 resolved to wait for the spring months before I made the attempt. 

 Accordingly I started in October with a fully equipped party. 

 I was kindly assisted by the Deputy Surveyor Greneral with all 

 requisite instruments for my survey. I formed my own party, 

 and engaged the services of an experienced surveyor to assist me 

 in the important work. 



I made the starting point for my survey at that spot on the 

 Bottleforest Road, near Bulge, where the head waters of the 

 Port Hacking rivulet take their rise, and which position I made 

 by aneroid measurement to be 1,050 feet over the sea, and distant 

 about 28 miles from Sydney. Here we drove our first starting- 

 peg or " bench mark," and carried on the survey of traversing 

 and levelling with the proper instruments. My course of starting 

 maintained a dead level, nearly south, over an easy but scrubby 

 country for two miles. At that distance we touched on the side 

 of the upper part of the "Woronora Creek, which was running 

 with a fair stream. Here we were interrupted in our level 

 course by the obstruction of the rising hill of the Bulge, or 

 Madden's Plain plateau, which forms the barrier between the 



