6 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 



" The question of water supply for the arid country in the 

 interior of Australia is one of the greatest importance, more 

 especially in connection with the future occupation of such 

 country for pastoral purposes. In his official report to the 

 Water Conservation Commission, Mr. Wilkinson states that 

 there are 138,500 square miles in the western portion of New 

 South Wales dependent upon artificial means for providing 

 permanent water supply. Of this area 22,000 square miles are 

 occupied by geological formations, from which, with but few 

 exceptions, water probably cannot be obtained by sinking or boring, 

 and the necessary supply can only be afforded by the rainfall 

 conserved in tanks or dams. But in the Upper Darling District, 

 from a few miles above Wilcannia to the Queensland Border, the 

 cretaceous formation containing water-bearing strata, embraces no 

 less than 40,000 square miles of pastoral country, producing salt- 

 bush and other good herbage, yet naturally destitute of surface 

 water, except in rainy seasons. And as the annual rainfall over 

 this district is very irregular, varying according to the records of 

 Mr. H. C. Russell, Government Astronomer, from only nine 

 inches in some localities to eighteen inches in others, and subject 

 to very great evaporation, this supply cannot be depended upon j 

 consequently squatting pursuits here have been very precarious, and 

 in some cases, attended with disastrous results to the stock in 

 seasons of drought, such as we have recently experienced. The 

 geological formation, however, of this large area being favourable 

 for the existence of water-bearing strata, the Department of 

 Mines, on the advice of the Government Geologist, commenced to 

 put down a series of bores to obtain water along a proposed stock 

 route from the Mount Brown Diggings in the far north-west to 

 the railway terminus at Bourke. At 51 miles west from Bourke, 

 artesian water was struck at a depth of 192 feet, and flowed 

 from the pipes at a height of 10 feet above the surface at the 

 rate of 15,000 gallons per day. Near Wanaring, on the Paroo, 

 about 24 miles further west, another bore has recently been 

 successful in piercing, at a depth of 942 feet, the water-bearing 



