WATER SUPPLY TO SYDNEY BY GRAVITATION. 127 



alone capable of supplying two of my proposed 24-inch diameter 

 mains and all this vast body of water would be obtained from 

 within 31 miles of Sydney, where the Loddon dam and tunnel 

 mouth would be situated. This great supply would be without 

 the further accession of an indefinite quantity of water that 

 would be available by my proposed south aqueduct, which would 

 lead its waters into the tunnel mouth ; and by which channel we 

 could have a further large drainage for Sydney above the level of 

 the tunnel mouth (1,121 feet over the sea). But I can see no use 

 of extending the south aqueduct, beyond perhaps a few miles 

 along the almost illimitable watersheds, and by expensive means, 

 when we can have an abundance of the purest waters much 

 nearer home, and at a comparatively very small cost. 



If my proposed Loddon dam was raised to 70 instead of only 

 50 feet, as designed by myself, it would I believe impound quite as 

 much water as the Yan Yean Lake of 1,200 acres, which, when full 

 at its maximum depth of 25 feet at the valve house, contains 

 6,000,000,000 gallons. But there is no advantage in having 

 such an immense storage until Sydney expands considerably. 

 My proposed cement concrete dam of maximum depth of 50 feet 

 across a very narrow pass or gully and at the confluence of four 

 permanently running streams, would store a supply of water 

 such as I show in Lake Loddon on my map, and which would 

 not be exhausted by Sydney by anything like its present demand, 

 especially if the four neighbouring brooks, south of the tunnel 

 mouth below the dam, were led into the tunnel. 



The Sydney watershed contains only 7 square miles ; and yet 

 the City Engineer has constantly remarked on the great dis- 

 charge into the sea of waters that could not be retained by the 

 sand dams, and that were in excess of the regular supply for the 

 engine pumps for Sydney consumption. It is not improbable 

 that quite as much runs into the sea as is sent up to Sydney. 

 This being the case, we have only to consider, for a conclusive 

 result, that my proposed first storage and nearest gathering 

 ground north of the Loddon dam commands quite double the 

 area of the Sydney watershed, and by a wetter region, and that 

 by the remarkably advantageous features of the country, all the 

 discharge waters could be retained with certainty and at a com- 

 paratively small cost. 



Under this knowledge of the existing watershed and of the 

 extraordinary facilities of storing the discharge of its rich water 

 supply, how can I do otherwise than regard all counter alarms 

 on my assertions of the adequacy of the supply as being other- 

 wise than imaginary ? 



Doubts have been entertained about the purity of the waters 

 in that high locality, and I was asked if I had had the waters 

 analyzed. I replied that I considered that the waters were so 



