IV. NORMAN SELFE. 



During Governor Phillip's administration Surveyor Alt also 

 appears to have designed and superintended the erection of, the 

 following buildings : — Brickworks at Brickfield Hill ; a strong 

 wooden girder bridge to carry Bridge-street across the stream at 

 Pitt-street ; Military Barracks and Buildings, 60 ft. by 72 ft. 

 near the present General Post Office ; and two of the original 

 barrack buildings which were on the west of Wynyard Square. 

 The proposal to build Government House on the ridge overlooking 

 Darling Harbour near the barracks being abandoned, he com- 

 menced its erection at Phillip-street and Bridge-street ; it will be 

 remembered that the foundation stone of this building was 

 unearthed in March of last year. Other works were a log gaol, 

 large public and military storehouses, a guard house, and two 

 public wharves. 



Surveyor-General Alt not only deepened the stream which flowed 

 from swampy ground near to Park-street into Sydney Cove, and 

 which supplied Sydney with water for thirty years afterwards, 

 but he planned the excavation near to Hunter-street of the tanks 

 in its sandstone bed which gave it the name of the " Tank Stream." _ 

 The first tank was near the junction of Hunter and Spring-street, 

 it held 7,996 gallons, and had a well in the centre 15 ft. deep, 

 and the records inform us that a crowd assembled to see the water 

 turned into it when it was finished. With regard to road making 

 this pioneer appears to have laid out the whole line from Dawes 

 Point through the young town, to the top of Brickfield Hill, (then 

 in the country), and from thence to Parramatta. This town was 

 also laid out by Alt, and most of its public buildings, such as the 

 hospital and granaries, were part of his work. Many men of far 

 less note and importance than Alt have monuments to them of 

 some kind or other. The only place where the name of our first 

 engineer seems to be perpetuated, is in " Alt-street," Ashfield, 

 where two grants of land aggregating 330 acres were made to him. 



In 1797 Surveyor-General Alt was invalided on account of his 

 impaired eyesight, he died on January 9th 1815, and was buried 

 at Parramatta. 



