IMPORTANCE OF FEDERAL HYDROGRAPHY. XXXV. 



deficiencies of the Bathurst and Goulburn water undertak- 

 ings might well have been avoided. It may be urged that 

 the cost of such an extensive work would be prohibitive, 

 but it need not be, the concentration of the work under 

 one head, say that of the Geological Survey, of which it 

 rightly forms a part, would allow of a very much larger 

 amount of work being performed for the same cost as the 

 disjointed efforts at present entail, and on the other hand 

 the money expended on the acquisition of this knowledge 

 would be recouped in a thousand ways, as I have already 

 shown ; the Government have road engineers and surveyors 

 in every part of the country, who would make very many 

 of the necessary observations ; flood gauges could be main- 

 tained and observed by Government employees on river 

 punts and elsewhere, and even much despised private 

 enterprise could be enlisted in the same way as Mr. Russell 

 has done with such splendid results. 



The present drought is estimated to cost Australia 130 

 millions of money, and if, as the author firmly believes, 

 such a study would point the way to save such awful losses 

 in the future, are we not criminally neglectful in not having 

 put our hands to the work long ago? 



The advantages that would accrue from a comprehensive 

 hydrographical survey such as herein indicated with the 

 records presented annually in a consolidated form must be 

 obvious, especially when your attention is drawn to the 

 fact that now such information has to be sought for — and 

 often in vain — in the scattered reports of several depart- 

 ments : if such a course was adopted the pastoralist, the 

 agriculturalist, the miner, and the engineer could have the 

 records upon their own bookshelves for reference. Ancient 

 and contemporary history both reveal to us the great im- 

 portance that has been attributed to this science by all 

 civilised nations in all ages, and the certainty of the recur- 



