Failure of the Yan Yean Reservoir. 



113 



engineer having reported very favourably of Mr. Blackburn's 

 gravitation scheme, and having condemned all other plans for 

 supplying the city from the Yarra, they determined forthwith 

 to commence the works at Yan Yean. 



I have always regretted the step taken by the Commis- 

 sioners in adopting the Yan Yean scheme. 



In the month of February, last year, I published a letter 

 for the purpose of vindicating Professor Smith's preference 

 of the Yarra scheme, and I endeavored to show that the 

 Yarra water was necessarily purer than the Plenty water, 

 and that the latter would be very much deteriorated by being 

 transferred into the Yan Yean swamp, and, being there de- 

 prived of that constant and continuous motion which is its very 

 life, that it would become incurably infected with microscopic 

 animal and vegetable productions, which no filtration could 

 remedy. 



I described the plan adopted by the city of Edinburgh, 

 which obtains its supply direct from the Crawley Springs, 

 without subjecting the water to the injurious influences of 

 exposure in a large open reservoir. And I urged the great 

 advantage of possessing an unlimited supply of this necessary 

 of hfe which the Plenty could not afford; and, as objections 

 had been taken to all other Yarra schemes, on the ground of 

 their impracticability, and the annual expenses attending 

 them, I ventured to propose a simple scheme for bringing the 

 Yarra water into Melbourne, on the gravitation principle, by 

 means of a tunnel carried to the base of a shaft to be sunk 

 alongside the Eastern Hill reservoir ; which would thus have 

 the effect of diminishing as far as possible the expense of 

 pumping and management; and I showed that the annual 

 expense of a pumping scheme for 100,000 inhabitants would 

 cost a half-penny per week, per head; and that any expense 

 was of trifling importance when the health and comfort of a 

 populous city were involved. 



1 regret that I did not further prosecute my inquiries at 

 that time, but the truth is that my letter having received no 

 attention or sympathy in any quarter, I saw no prospect of 

 warding off the evil which I believed to be impending over 

 the city. 



I still object to the Yan Yean scheme— 1. Because of the 

 enormous expense. In consequence of the discovery of the 

 G-old-fields, labor is now at a much higher rate than when it 

 was first projected by Mr. Blackburn. The Commissioners' 



ia -Pfi/^ 0^)00. of which £400,000 have 



