ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 53 
Of the work carried out by the Water Conservation Depart- 
ment, the most important is the crib-work overshot weir on the 
River Lachlan, the object of which is to divert a portion of the 
waters of that river down the Willandra Billabong, an important 
natural effluent of the Lachlan, through which, in 1870, the flood 
waters of this river reached a point within about thirty miles of 
the waters of the River Darling. The weir has proved a most 
useful work, and though constructed under most disadvantageous 
circumstances, the work is a decided success. Constructed in 
friable alluvium resting on a great deposit of sand, it was not 
quite complete when the great flood of 1890 passed over it and 
stopped further work for months. After that a series of moderate 
floods interrupted the work repeatedly ; but the work, including 
an earthen dam across the Lachlan and the improvement of the 
first six miles of the Willandra Billabong have been completed at 
a gross cost of about £10,000. It is now reckoned that permanent 
water will be maintained in the Willandra Billabong throughout 
a length of two hundred miles, while in addition the weir holds 
back a supply in the Lachlan to a distance of over twelve miles. 
The improvement of Yanko Creek is a work of the same descrip- 
tion, and has proved extremely beneficial to a large tract of rich 
country. 
In regard to underground water supply, a bore is being put 
down under this Department at Coonamble. The immediate 
object is to afford a supply of water to that town; but it is ex- 
pected that if successful it will lead to much further enterprise of 
the same description in that district, thereby promoting settlement 
and enhancing the value of Crown lands. 
I will conclude this long address by thanking you for the patient 
attention with which you have listened to it, and in vacating the 
Chair in favour of the newly elected President, Prof. Anderson 
Stuart, I need not say anything by way of introduction, as he is 
so well known to the members of this Society. Iam sure that 
the Society will prosper under his able direction, and I ask that 
you will give him the same support which has always been 
accorded to me. 
