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REPORT OF THE VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT BOTANIST. 187
base of the ridges and along the Yarra banks might be widened into
pleasure drives, could now be readily carried out, the Yarra flats, by
recent arrangements, being no longer occupied as pasture ground.
In special artistic ornamentation as yet little has been effected, the
Director deeming it of pre-eminent importance to devote his early
means to the raising of trees and utilitarian plants, such as will miti-
gate the heat of our summer clime, and increase the salubrity of the
city, or such as will play an important element hereafter in our rural
economy, and originate new industries. This is the reason why no
fountains exist, save one in the central island of the lake ; thus neither
are statues erected.
Works of art we can call forth at pleasure, while time lost in form-
ing the plantations cannot be regained. Now, however, since the
main planting operations have been eiFected, it is but too desirable
that a few appropriate statues and monumental works should add to
the embellishment of the very varied vegetation, and stand with it in
bold or beautifying contrast. It is proposed to gather works of art,
constructed of the most varied material ; the Carrara marble, all the
cement compositions, the various blendings of ore, might all be brought
together for illustration. For the play of fountains, the water pressure
was hitherto quite insufficient, inasmuch as the Yan Yean works are
only utilized when, at late night-hours, the pressure exceeds 40 lbs. to
the square inch. Had not, providently, each of the many garden build-
ings been supplied with a spacious cistern, it would have been impos-
sible to save the plantations from destruction during the trials of the
summer mouths, unless by costly means Yarra water had been forced
to the culmination of the hill for extensive irrigation. A special vote,
adequate for such waterworks, has never been at my disposal, nor could
such independent water-supply have been maintained, unless annually
a considerable outlay for fuel and attendance to an engine were in-
curred, or, what appears still less desirable, a windmill—apt to inter-
fere with the traffic, and never sightly— had been established on the
summit of the ridge. Nevertheless, it might be highly instructive to
show, by local experiment, how much Yarra water could be forced by
steam-power to the summits of our rises, within certain expenditure of
capital and labour, because the fertility of many extensive tracts of the
country could be very much increased, and the clime vastly be
ameliorated, if rivers like the Yarra, and still more so those of tlie
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