08 WATER SUPPLY TO SYDNEY BY GRAVITATION. 



a supply from the Botany side, in the same manner that they have 

 struck me, I desire to say, before I propound my own scheme any 

 further, that I see serious objections to Mr. Bell's (the City 

 Engineer) proposal, beyond the one great objection of the water 

 supply from that side becoming more or less polluted through 

 the proximity of the city. I see in this plan two other strong 

 objections, the least of which is that it is only a pumping scheme 

 at best, and therefore subject to dangerous casualties. But 

 there is another and infinitely more important objection to any 

 Botany Waterworks in future ; and this by reason that as it can 

 neither be looked upon as Quixotic or chimerical to imagine the 

 future of Sydney as a great manufacturing city, and that if it is 

 to become the Birmingham and Manchester of the Southern 

 Hemisphere, so will the area and the waters about Botany be 

 required for the purposes of manufacture. 



This locality would be remarkably advantageous for such pur- 

 poses, for the following reasons : — 



1st. That in the probable event of coal being brought by rail- 

 way from the south, it will be readily accessible for a 

 cheap supply of coal. 



2ndly. That there will be a sufficient abundance of water 

 there for manufactories. 



3rdly. That it presents admirable advantages for carrying off 

 all waste water and impurities into a sea basin (Botany 

 Bay) which would be remote from the greater centre of 

 the city population. 



These considerations point to the probability of the whole of 

 the Lachlan Swamp and land adjacent to the watercourses from 

 Paddington to the Bay becoming a great manufacturing suburb, 

 and that it will be advisable therefore to look to more remote, 

 and, I dare say, purer sources for the supply of water for human 

 consumption in the metropolis. Independently of this prospect 

 of this land being required for manufactures, it appears to be 

 sufficiently obvious that it cannot be advisable to cramp the 

 extension of a growing city by these reservations of, or shutting 

 up of three or four thousand acres on its outskirts, a reservation 

 which it is avowed would be absolutely necessary, in order to 

 prevent pollution of those waters with which Mr. Bell proposes 

 to supply the city. And here too we should bear in mind, that 

 such reservation and locking up of the most valuable manufac- 

 turing and building sites would involve a loss that would alone 

 probably represent the total expenses of a direct gravitation 

 water supply scheme in enclosed mains from the Illawarra Moun- 

 tains. 



With this preface to my paper, 1 will hope that the peculiar 

 and very important social interests involved in this matter will 

 be quite sufficient apology for your not having a paper read 



