228 H. G. McKINNEY. 



The Murray and Murrumbidgee our only valuable rivers for 

 Irrigation. — As a natural result of the absence of perpetual snows 

 and of mountains of any great height, our rivers are of compara- 

 tively small discharge and uncertain flow. Of the rivers which 

 flow westward from the Dividing Range, only the Murray and 

 the Murrumbidgee possess sufficient regularity of flow to make 

 them valuable as sources of supply for large irrigation canals. In 

 both cases the regularity is due chiefly to the extent of mountain- 

 ous country on which snow accumulates in considerable quantity 

 in the winter months. In the case of the Murray, the greater 

 height of the mountains and the extensive deposits of snow ensure 

 a large supply of water in the spring and early summer months, 

 and this high supply frequently continues till the middle of 

 January. Large areas of disintegrated granite and of open soil 

 on the mountain sides, and the porous deposits of the river flats, 

 render a slowly percolating supply to the river and contribute 

 materially to the maintenance of a comparatively equable flow. 

 The superiority of the catchment of the Murray above Albury to 

 that of the Murrumbidgee above Wagga Wagga is evidenced by 

 the fact that while the area in the former case is only about half 

 that in the latter, the average minimum discharge during a period 

 of seventeen years was about 1,400 cubic feet per second in the 

 case of the Murray, as compared with about 950 cubic feet per 

 second in the case of the Murrumbidgee. It may be here remarked 

 that the Indian Irrigation Department introduced a word to 

 express the unit of measurement of water, namely "cusec," which 

 is simply abbreviated from "cubic feet per second," and as it is a 

 recognised term and is much more convenient, it will be used 

 wherever necessary in this paper. 



First proposals for utilising the waters of the Murray in New 

 South Wales. — Early in 1885, it became the duty of the present 

 writer to inspect the river Murray with a view to suggesting what 

 could be done towards utilising its waters. Information as to its 

 discharge and regarding the relative levels of the river and the 

 plains adjacent was meagre and fragmentary, but all that was 



