114 Failure of the Yan Yean Reservoir. 



already been expended; but it is the o])inion of many that 

 they will luorc probably cost £1,000,000. 2. Because the 

 Commissioners, in erecting temporary works for supplying the 

 city from tlic Yarra, have shown that, for the comparatively 

 small sum of £30,000, the same object can, to a certain ex- 

 tent, be accomphshed; and, indeed, if they had erected their 

 tem[)orary works at the right place, viz., near the junction of 

 the Merri Creek with the Yarra, about a mile and a half 

 from the reservoir at St. Peter's Church, the temporary 

 works being distant half a mile from the same reservoir, and, . 

 so as to have avoided the surface drainnge and sewerage of 

 CoUingwood and Kichiiiond, we could have dispensed with 

 the Yan Yean Water Works altogether. The expense of the 

 additional horse-power rc(piired for the increased distance of 

 one mile, which would be about six horses added to forty, 

 and the saving in the carriage of coal, are trifling advantages 

 to be purchased at a sacrifi(ie of the public health, in a popu- 

 lous and wealthy city, which this measure really involves, as 

 it has been clearly shown, by chemical analysis, that the wa- 

 ter at Prince's Bridge contains foiu' times more of impurities 

 and matters ])rejudlcial to henlth than the water at the junc- 

 tion of the ]\Ierri Creek with the Yarra. 



But let us suppose that it would have been necessary to 

 expend £60,000 in the erection of permanent works for 

 raising water from the Yarra into the reservoir at St. Peter's 

 Church, this would have been decidedly preferable as a com- 

 mercial enterprise, when we contrast the interest of £60,000 

 at 10 per cent, with that of £600,000. 



The Commissioners have thus altogether sacrificed the pe" 

 cuniary interests of the public in their selection of the gravi- 

 tation scheme, and have ignored the principle upon which a 

 s(;lection of either scheme is always based, namely, its adapt- 

 ation to attbrd an ample supply of water at the lowest possi- 

 ble cost. T ;i ^- 

 3. I object to the Commissioners' scheme because i do not 

 think that in this climate a large swamp covering 7,000,000 

 square yards of surface is a suitable place for storing water 

 for the consumption of a large city. It has been the natural 

 receptacle for the surface drainage of the surrounding ranges, 

 with only a very small natural outlet or water course. Ihe 

 conseqiuaice has been a vast accuimdatlon of green slimy 

 mud, the result of decaying organic matters, which will 

 greatly alter and deteriorate the water of the Plenty, w uch, 

 within its own banks, is exceedingly pure. And I find, on 



