ENG-1960 — Page 20

REVIEW

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Readers will remember that Hong Kong became a Crown Colony in 1841. In the early years the inhabitants depended for their water on wells and hillside streams. The first reservoir at Pok Fu Lam, completed in 1863, was already at that date insufficient to meet requirements. Engineers therefore constructed a new dam further upstream, which is still in use today. Next they tapped streams in the Wong Nai Chung and Tai Hang areas to supply the town as it expanded eastwards, and in the eighties conceived and completed the first stage of the Tai Tam complex. This included the Tai Tam reservoir on the south-east side of the island with a capacity of over 312 million gallons, a tunnel through the hills to the north, and a conduit leading to slow sand filter beds near the Botanical Gardens. This was the first filtered supply. The first Peak supply was installed in 1891, the district having hitherto been dependent on wells, and by 1895 the dis- tribution system in the urban area of the island must have been adequate, for in that year there was a prohibition on the use of wells on grounds of public health. In 1897, fourteen years after its completion, the Tai Tam dam was raised 9 feet. Temporary boards placed across the overflows of Pok Fu Lam and Tai Tam increased their storage capacity, and the year 1899 saw the present Wong Nai Chung reservoir finished and brought into use. Thus by 1899 the total storage capacity of the waterworks, all of which was still on the island of Hong Kong, had increased to over 511 million gallons. In the same year, the boundaries of the Colony were extended by the occupation of the New Territories, acquired on a 99 years' lease by the Convention of Peking of 1898. The Kowloon peninsula had been ceded to Britain in 1860, but offered no scope for extending the storage capacity of the Colony and was still served solely by wells and streams.

In 1902 a particularly severe water famine occurred, ac- companied by outbreaks of cholera and bubonic plague. At the beginning of May the hours of supply were cut down to one hour a day, and water had to be brought in from the mainland by boat, from which it was pumped into tanks on the praya. On the 5th May the Hongkong Daily Press castigated Government's inertia over bringing in supplies in this way, but fortunately the need for such emergency action did not long continue as the rains broke in the second week of that month. These experiences