343
Deducting trade supplies, which amount to 166,019,000, the average consumption per head per diem is reduced to 13.5 gallons. In addition to the above, 60,248,000 gallons of unfiltered water have been supplied.
22. The total quantity pumped to the Hill District was 18,180,000 gallons, equal to an average daily con- sumption of 50,000 gallons, or 20 gallons per head for an estimated population of 2,500.
23. The number of meters now in use in the City is 307 and in the Hill District 121.
24. The usual tabular statements showing the mouthly consumption, rainfall &c. are given in Appendices A, B & C, and diagrams showing the hourly consumption during the course of the day in Appendices D, E & F.
25. New services have been constructed and existing ones repaired to the number of 578.
26. The services of 1,306 houses were inspected during the year; 102 of these were found defective, but were repaired after the usual notice had been served.
27. Owing to an extension of the High Levels of the City eastward and to the increase of population at the Peak, the latter mainly on account of the occupation of Mount Austin Hotel as Military Barracks, the pumping machinery for supplying these districts is fast becoming inadequate and new plant has been requisitioned from home and it is hoped will be available for the summer of 1900 (C.S.O.'s H13 & 1351).
28. The new Filter Beds on the Bowen Road having a filtering area of 1,661 square yards were brought into use during the year and have proved of great service in relieving the strain on the Albany Filter Beds.
29. Considerable leakage being discovered from Pokfulam Service Reservoir its floor was lined with cement concrete at a cost of $630.50 (C.S.Ö. 4). With this exception no extraordinary repairs have been required,
30. Maintenance of Waterworks, Kowloon.—A constant supply of water has also been maintained in the case of Kowloon and the results of analyses made from time to time have been entirely satisfactory. The mains were extended to Hok Ün during the year. The total quantity of water supplied was 77,325,000 gallons, equal to an average daily consumption of 204,000 gallons, or 7.8 per head for a population of 26,000 persons. Deducting trade supplies, which amount to 19,240,000 gallous, the average consumption per head per day is reduced to 6.1 gallons. 31. The number of meters in use in Kowloon is 81, all supplies being metered except those obtainable from the public fountains, of which there are 94 fixed throughout the Peninsula.
season.
32. The demand for water in Kowloon Peninsula now exceeds the quantity available at the end of the dry This is owing to the rapid development of the district which, when the present works were projected in 1892, contained a population of 13,000 now estimated at 26,000. With a view to meet the urgent present need for water, authority has been granted to construct a puddle wall at the back of, and to raise No. 1 Dam 5 feet, (C.S.O. ). This, however, can only be regarded as a temporary measure and immediate steps should be taken to obtain a gravitation supply from the territory about to be ceded to the British Government to the north of Kowloon Peninsula.
33. Particulars of the monthly consumption, &c. will be found in Appendix G.
34. New services have been constructed or existing services added to or repaired to the number of 53.
35. Maintenance of Waterworks, Shaukiwan.-A constant supply of water has been maintained throughout the year; the water is mainly distributed through 18 public fountains, all other services being metered.
36. Maintenunce of Waterworks, Aberdeen.—A constant supply of water has been maintained throughont the year.
A meter has been fixed by means of which figures showing the monthly consumption will be available in future. There are 8 public fountains in the village, all other services being metered.
MAINTENANCE OF ROADS.
The
The
37. The roads and streets of the City have been kept generally in good repair. prolonged drought towards the end of the year caused some of them to break up rather badly, but on the other hand the year had been free from heavy and destructive rainfall. An experiment was made in surfacing a portion of Queen's Road with the hard blue crystalline gneiss of which there is abundance in the Colony instead of with friable white granite. There is no doubt that the life of a road laid with the first named stone would be much longer, and the streets so surfaced much cleaner in wet weather. The road so treated is wearing well, but the trial was not a fair one, as it was found impossible to roll in and consolidate the metal with stone rollers drawn by coolies, and consequently an undue quantity of disintegrated granite and sand was laid over the stone. contractor found that the cost of breaking the blue stone was double the cost of breaking the granite, a clear proof of the superiority of the former as a road material. Both these difficulties have been overcome by the purchase of a machine stone breaker and the ordering of a ten-ton steam road roller from England. The former has been at work at Kennedy Town for a short time with very satisfactory results, many tons of the blue stone being broken at about the same cost as the softest granite. The steam road roller has arrived from England, and there is every reason to expect that in a few years the condition of the roads, when covered with a thoroughly consolidated layer of hard clean stone, blinded with grit of the same nature, will be greatly improved. A common complaint against machine stone crushers is the large quantity of fine grit formed in the process. This will be no draw- back here, as the grit from this blue stone is a perfect material for concrete on footpaths and in places where a fine but not slippery surface is required.
38. Lime concrete is found to be a bad material for any road exposed to heavy traffic; it quickly wears into deep holes, and a lime concrete roadway patched is by no means satisfactory. For roads such as the New Praya a heavy coating of macadam overlying a solid foundation of larger stone, thoroughly consolidated to a smooth surface by the steam roller, will last much longer and prove far easier to repair.