STDNET WATER SUPPLY BT GEAYITATION. 55 



supposed to have thoroughly digested the subjects, and that I do 

 hope that no pressure of petitions from interested parties will be 

 allowed to bear with the public or on the Grovernment for any 

 departure from the prescribed route of the intended Illawarra 

 Railway in its direct course to its only true and legitimate ter- 

 minus for a future great coal trade, namely, at North Balmain, 

 as now surveyed, — any deviation from which would I feel sure be 

 a fatal mistake. 



I also desire here to repeat my belief and hope, publicly 

 expressed in my first railway paper, read before this Society on 

 6tli of August, 1873, that the northern connection of-the Mait- 

 land, Newcastle, and Lake Macquarie trades with the harbour 

 of Port Jackson, at the North Shore, opposite Cockatoo Island, 

 may speedily follow in the present awakening spirit of progress. 



And now with reference to this water supply scheme, I trust 

 it will not be thought that I am actuated by any ungenerous 

 motives towards the designers of the other grand schemes. When 

 the "Water Commission prosecuted their labours several years 

 ago the Illawarra Railway was not thought of, and consequently 

 the Port Hacking Eiver north of Bulgo and east of the Illawarra 

 Road was never visited by the Commission, nor was any union 

 of those waters or those of the head of George's River and of the 

 Waranora with the south coast waters then contemplated. It is 

 therefore to the development of the Illawarra Railway that we 

 owe that natural enlightenment which has led to the discovery of a 

 most valuable water supply for Sydney, wholly to be brought 

 about by availing ourselves of Nature's simple laws, and of fol- 

 lowing her own gravitation principle of the north-westerly dips 

 of her great coal basin at our doors. 



Such are my ideas towards the designers of the other water 

 schemes, and towards the gentlemen who constituted the Water 

 Commission of 1869. And on my own behalf, I rely confidently 

 on the language of the Commission, towards the end of their 

 Report to the Grovernment, when they made the following 

 remarks : — " We now invite the closest scrutiny of our results, 

 sensible that if our scheme (the Nepean) be in the main the best 

 attainable, it vrill be improved by passing through the ordeal of 

 enlightened criticism ; while if any better scheme still lies undis- 

 covered, this same criticism will, we trust, bring it to light." 



Finally, then, with such high-minded remarks from the 

 gentlemen of the Water Commission, I need not hesitate to say 

 that, in advancing my own gravitation water supply scheme before 

 this Society and before the public, I do rely upon its substantial 

 excellence by reason of its being based on geological deductions. 

 I rely on the natural features of its locality for abundant water 

 supply and abundant storage, far more than on any useless amount 



