We see extensive deposits constantly forming in front of the Happy Valley and entailing periodically a large outlay in their removal by the dredging of the Bowrington Canal. Again, abreast of the Wanchai Gap Valley and along the foreshore near No. 2 Police Station the same thing is occurring, and it was but last year that the Government was compelled to project an artificial and unsightly reclamation beyond the line of the Praya Wall in order to save the Wanchai Sewers from getting choked by sud. Next in order of succession come the Magazine Nullah and the subject of the Commanding Royal Engineer's Memorandum, , the Albany Nullah and its water-shed, forming no exception to the general rule.
One quarter of a mile to the West again, follows the Glenealy Valley the rain-drainage of which is carried to the sea under the City by means of a great stone sewer through which have passed and are passing hundreds of tons of sand, a large portion of which has to be removed periodically to prevent the sewer outlets from becoming buried in it. Still further to the West follow four parallel water-sheds with smaller drainage areas, but which nevertheless pour out year after year huge masses of silt along the sea in front of the Chinese districts. Last but not least at the extreme Western suburb, and near the Gas Works, the Shek-tong-Tsui stream rolls out into the Bay so large an amount of mud and débris as to have already formed a spit or tongue projecting to a considerable distance beyond its mouth, and which as regards growth and dimensions is only equalled by the deposits at Bowrington.
9. It is certain therefore that a far more anxious question than the silting up of the Albany Nullah mouth, no less a one than the rapid shoaling of the entire water-frontage of Victoria awaits solution at the hands of the Imperial and the Island Governments. That this shoaling is going on in a very sure and steady manner is a fact which unfortunately can admit of no possible doubt, for above low water mark the evidence of one's own senses, and below low water mark, the soundings which have been periodically taken off the Praya Wall too clearly indicate its uninterrupted progress.
10. Along the western half of the City where land is very valuable, the difficulty, which is by no means a new one, has always been met and overcome, and will always continue to be successfully overcome by the periodical construction of a new breast wall out in deeper water, and by the artificial conversion of the sea behind it into dry land, which is bought with avidity for building purposes and at a Crown rental sufficiently high eventually to reimburse the Government for a considerable portion of the outlay entailed.
11. In the eastern half of the City, along the Bowrington and Wanchai districts, it is otherwise. There, the shoaling extends very much further out from the shore owing to the configuration of the latter and to the inaction of the tides. Consequently a new sea wall, if built in moderately deep water, would have to be placed at a very great distance out from the present shore, and the area to be reclaimed behind it would be so enormous as to render the undertaking a very serious one, especially as it is very doubtful whether any body could be found to purchase the new ground after it was made. The present Sea Wall and Praya roadway along these districts were built in 1859, during SIR JOHN BOWRING'S administration. The reclamation extended from the Military Arsenal to East Point a distance of one mile, and it is said that for a few years after its completion, junks and small craft were able to moor alongside and make fast to the wall. To-day however, except in a few places, this same wall is inaccessible at low water spring tides even to the smallest rowing skiff, and during extraordinarily low springs it is seen to be fringed by a foreshore over the greater part of which one may walk dryshod.
Page 356
12. In the central District, a large portion of the waterside is the property of the Naval and Military Departments, and it has fared no better. The sea is receding, and Her Majesty's Naval Yard, which a few years ago had an approach sufficiently deep for gunboats to lie at the head of the Admiralty Pier while refitting, will be eventually left high and dry. Nothing different could have been foreseen by either of the Imperial Departments when years ago they selected the sites for their waterside premises, and it is not to be wondered that the approaches to the same should now be found shallowed when it is borne in mind that Colonial lands parcelled out at the same time into Marine Lots have long since passed into the category of Inland Lots, and that the new properties built out into the sea which caused this change have again in their turn, after a short existence as Marine Lots, been subjected to the same change of classification by fresh reclamations in their front.
13. It has been necessary to review the question generally, before adverting specially to the individual case of the Albany Stream, in order to show that the evils complained of in the Commanding Royal Engineer's Memorandum are not restricted solely to the neighbourhood of the Military reservations. And in regard to this Albany Stream, I have the honour, with all due deference, to submit that although its silting may entirely originate as stated in paragraph 5 of the Memorandum, on the hill sides which are Colonial Government property, the cause is as completely beyond the control of the Colonial Government as it is beyond that of the War Department and its Officers; nor can it be possible to hold the former even partially responsible for the silting of the stream, as inferred by the tenour of the Commanding Royal Engineer's Memorandum, any more than it can be made answerable for the physical configuration of the Island, for its latitude and longitude, for its rainfall, for the geological inability of its surface to withstand meteorological influences, or for any other natural cause whatsoever.
14. Nor am I prepared, after very careful investigation, to acquiesce in the correctness of the statement made in paragraph 4 of the Memorandum, to the effect that the obstruction at the mouth of the stream has been caused by the rubbish tipped into it at the Roman Catholic Chapel by the public at large. Before the Typhoon of September, 1874, this abuse never existed at all, for the man in charge of the Chapel was always on the alert to prevent it. After the Typhoon when the Chapel became a ruin, it is true that some people threw broken tiles and brickbats in its vicinity, but these attracting the notice of the Police a stop was put to the irregularity. Since then Police notice boards strictly forbidding persons to shoot rubbish anywhere in the vicinity have been posted, nevertheless in spite of these and the vigilance of the Inspectors of Nuisances it is quite true that on several occasions people have been detected committing the same offence. I would however point out that such cases have been rare, and there can be no doubt that on this point the Commanding Royal Engineer must surely have been misinformed. I am told that the servants of one of the War Department tenants who keeps a large livery Stable and Dairy on Ordnance Land used to be seen throwing rubbish into the watercourse, this however the Police could not well have prevented as they do not patrol military grounds. But whatever abuses of this kind may have occurred, they could not to any extent appreciable by the eye, have aided in or contributed to the great operations of Nature which have been described in regard to other streams and which are the true causes of the present condition of the Albany Nullah.
15. For these operations of Nature, Nature alone is responsible, and it should not be sought by proclaiming the ownership of the ground on which they occur, to lay at the door of a sister service, evils which each of the Departments has in its turn, at one time or another, had to combat single-handed and from its own resources, and to which all three alike became liable to be exposed when Her Majesty's Government assumed possession of this Island with all its physical peculiarities and drawbacks.
16. It is clear from the Commanding Royal Engineer's Memorandum that the condition of the Nullah has become as serious a matter for consideration by the ...
i
we see extensive deposits constantly forming in front of the Happy Valley and entailing periodically a large outlay in their removal by the dredging of the Bow- rington Canal. Again, abreast of the Wanchai Gap Valley and along the foreshore near No. 2 Police Station the same thing is occurring, and it was but last year that the Government was compelled to project an artificial and unsightly reclamation beyond the line of the Praya Wall in order to save the Wanchai Sewers from getting choked by sud. Next in order of succession come the Magazine Nullah and the subject of the Commanding Royal Engineer's Memorandum, ¿e., the Albany Nullah and its water-shed, forming no exception to the general rule.
One quarter of a mile to the West again, follows the Glenealy Valley the rain-drainage of which is carried to the sea nuder the City by incans of a great stone sewer through which have passed and are passing hundreds of tons of sand, a large portion of which has to be removed periodically to prevent the sewer outlets from becoming buried in it. Still further to the West follow four parallel water-sheds with smaller drainage areas, but which nevertheless pour out year after year huge masses of silt along the sea in front of the Chinese districts. Last but not least at the extreme Western suburb, and near the Gas Works, the Shek-tong-Tsui stream rolls out into the Bay so large an amount of inud and débris as to have already formed a spit or tongue projecting to a considerable distance beyond its mouth, and which as regards growth aud dimensions is only equalled by the deposits at Bowrington.
9. It is certain therefore that a far more anxious question than the silting up of the Albany Nullah mouth, no less a one than the rapid shouling of the entire water-frontage of Victoria awaits solution at the hands of the Imperial and the Island Governments. That this shoaling is going on in a very sure and steady manner is a fact which unfortunately can admit of no possible doubt, for above low water mark the evidence of one's own senses, and below low water mark, the soundings which have been periodically taken off the Praya Wall too clearly indicate its uninterrupted progress.
10. Along the western half of the City where land is very valuable, the difficulty, which is by no means a new one, has always been met and overcome, and will always continue to be successfully overcome by the periodical construction of a new breast wall out in deeper water, and by the artificial conversion of the sea behind it into dry land, which is bought with avidity for building purposes and at a Crown rental sufficiently high eventually to reimburse the Government for a considerable portion of the outlay entailed.
1. In the eastern half of the City, along the Bowrington and Wanchai districts, it is otherwise. There, the shouling extends very much further out from the shore owing to the configuration of the latter and to the inaction of the tides. Consequently a new sea wall, if built in moderately deep water, would have to be placed at a very great distance out from the present shore, and the area to be reclaimed behind it would be so enormous as to render the undertaking a very serious one, especially as it is very doubtful whether any body could be found to purchase the new ground after it was made. The present Sea Wall and Praya roadway along these districts were built in 1859, during SIR JOHN BOWRING'S administration. The reclamation extended from the Military Arsenal to East Point a distance of one inile, and it is said that for a few years after its completion, junks and small craft were able to moor alongside and make fast to the wall. To-day however, except in a few places, this same wall is inaccessible at low water spring tides even to the smallest rowing skiff, and during extraordinarily low springs it is seen to be fringed by a foreshore over the greater part of which one may walk dryshod.
12. In the central District, a large portion of the waterside is the property The sea is of the Naval and Military Departments, and it has fared no better. receding, and Her Majesty's Naval Yard, which a few years ago had an approach sufficiently deep for gunboats to lie at the head of the Admiralty Pier while
356
refitting, will be eventually left high and dry. Nothing different could have been foreseen by either of the Imperial Departinents when years ago they selected the sites for their waterside premises, and it is not to be wondered that the approaches to the same should now be found shallowed when it is borne in mind that Colonial lands parcelled out at the same time into Marine Lots have long since passed into the category of Inland Lots, and that the new properties built out into the sea which caused this change have again in their turn, after a short existence as Marine Lots, been subjected to the same change of classification by fresh reclama- tions in their front.
13. It has been necessary to review the question generally, before adverting specially to the individual case of the Albany Stream, in order to show that the evils complained of in the Commanding Royal Engineer's Memorandum are not restricted solely to the neighbourhood of the Military reservations. And in regard to this Albany Stream, I have the honour, with all due deference, to submit that although its silting may entirely originate as stated ia paragraph 5 of the Memorandum, on the hill sides which are Colonial Government property, the cause is as completely beyond the control of the Colonial Government as it is beyond that of the War Department and its Officers; nor can it be possible to hold the former even partially responsible for the silting of the stream, as inferred by the tenour of the Commanding Royal Engineer's Memorandum, any more than it can be made answerable for the physical configuration of the Island, for its latitude and longitude, for its rainfall, for the geological inability of its surface to withstand meteorological influences, or for any other natural cause whatsoever.
14. Nor am 1 prepared, after very careful investigation, to acquiesce in the correctness of the statement made in paragraph 4 of the Memorandum, to the effect that the obstruction at the mouth of the stream has been caused by the rubbish tipped into it at the Roman Catholic Chapel by the public at large. Before the Typhoon of September, 1874, this abuse never existed at all, for the man in charge of the Chapel was always on the alert to prevent it. After the Typhoon when the Climpel became a ruin, it is true that some people threw broken tiles and brickbats in its vicinity, but these attracting the notice of the Police a stop was put to the irregularity. Since then Police notice boards strictly forbidding persons to shoot rubbish any where in the vicinity have been posted, nevertheless in spite of these and the vigilance of the Inspectors of Nuisances it is quite true that on several occasions people have been detected committing the same offence. I would however point out that such cases have been rare, and there eau be no doubt that on this point the Commanding Royal Engineer must surely have been misinformed. I am told that the servants of one of the War Department tenants who keeps a large livery Stable and Dairy on Ordnance Land used to be seen throwing rubbish into the watercourse, this however the Police could not well have prevented as they do not patrol military grounds. But whatever abuses of this kind may have occurred, they could not to any extent appreciable by the eye, have aided in or contributed to the great operations of Nature which have been described in regard to other streams and which are the true causes of the present condition of the Albany Nullah,
15. For these operations of Nature, Nature alone is responsible, and it shoul I not be sought by proclaiming the ownership of the ground on which they occur, to lay at the door of a sister service, evils which each of the Departments has in its turn, at one time or another, had to combat single-handed and from its own resources, and to which all three alike became liable to be exposed when Her Majesty's Government assumed possession of this Island with all its physical peculiarities and drawbacks.
16. It is clear from the Comunanding Royal Engineer's Memorandum that the condition of the Nullah has become as serions a matter for consideration by the
.......
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.