Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/210

 1 84 ADELAIDE AND VICINITY The Jubilee As to improvements effected in the city, first and foremost was deep drainage. For years this (juestion had been debated with thoroughness, and while some citizens advocated that the sewage should be carried into the Gulf, others were in favor of a sew;ige farm. At ratepayers' meetings, for upwards of lo years, schemes had been discussed with such detail that it seemed that deep drainage was to be immediately established. The election of Councillors often turned on the (juestion. In the preceding chapters we saw that Parliament, or responsible Ministers, were principally to blame for the delay, but now the hopes of citizens were to be realised. The City Council importuned the Government so persistently that in 1878 the sum of ^200,000 for deej) dr.iinage was included in a Loan Bill. Further amounts of / 110,000 and / 100,800 were subsequendy obtained for the same purpose. By 1884 the work of laying the main sewers was completed, and 6,500 connections were made up to October ot that year. Sewage Farm By October of the following year the system in Adelaide was practically complete. In subsequent years the suburbs have been gradually connected with the system. As it was feared that the tide in the Gulf would not draw the output of the sewers into the ocean, but would deposit it on the beach, the scheme eventually adopted was to establish a sewage farm. The whole system was carried out on scientific principles ; cajjacious main sewers were laid down, and the site of Adelaide, so carefully and presciently chosen by Colonel Light, offered no great engineering difficulties to the completion of the design. These sewers run from the populated centres, and are connected with the thoroughfares by a great number of street sewers. Beneath Adelaide is a series of miniature cleansing rivers, which disembogue at the .Sewage Farm at Islington, about four miles north of the city. There all the sewage is strained before being distributed.