NEW SOUTH WALES.

Marlborough Press, Volume I, Issue 23, 9 June 1860, Page 3

NEW SOUTH WALES.

[From the Sydney Morning Herald.'] THE LATE FLOODS AT SYDNEY. The metropolis ?has seldom been visited with such steady, heavy, and continuous fall of rain as commenced on Wednesday and terminated on Sunday. With the exception of an hour on Thursday evening,, there has been no cessation of the pitiless pouring - . It was the sort of rain that tests houses—searching, ’dashing, pouring, heating, insinuating itself through brick and stone, and finding out all the weak places left by unskilful builders. And yet, considered as a sanitary agent, it was a blessed rain, for it flushed the sewers, and washed the streets, and carried away into the harbour all the garbage and filth that had accumulated since the last flood. Down the cross streets in Woolloomooloo the raging torrents ran, displacing kerbstones and geutteriug, ploughing into the side paths, and dashing over all obstacles with a velocity pleasant for boys to witness, but distressing to an alderman when he thought of the empty exchequer of the Corporation. We are glad to state that no buildings of any importance have been swept away by the floods. The market gardeners at Rushcutter’s and Double Bay, have suffered severely, all their little plots having been under water, which, draining off, has left behind a bed of sand. These poor people had but just recovered from the last flood, and had only repaired the damage then inflicted a short time before the rain set in. Their plots of barley, and their beds of vegetables, and feed for cattle, are \ all destroyed by the water; and-their prospects for the winter, therefore, are bleak enough. The new South Head Road is literally worn out by this last rain. Coming nearer Sydney, there is a great gap on the western side of Rushcutter’s bridge, at least one half of the road having been engulphed by the river. At one time, on Saturday, the river rose six feet, and swept under the bridge with immense force. But Woolloomooloo-street itself caps the climax, and it is a disgrace to the body corporate. It is altogether impassable. Here, one sees the gas pipes exposed; there the naked rock ; here, caverns, chasms, and yawning gulphs; there, where the path should be, meandering canals three feet deep, through which the water has rushed at will. Rocks, stones, and boulders have been dashed about in wild confusion, and if ii were a street it is now thoroughly disintegrated. Some idea may be formed of the immense quantity that fell, when we state that at one o’clock on Saturday there were four feet of water in Burdelcin’s paddock, at the foot of Palmer.street. In Paramatta-street considerable damage was caused by the rush of waters. The drain across the street near Mr. Pemell’s mills was not large enough to carry off the water as fast as it accumulated ; the result was that the wall adjoining the mills gave way —the body of water thus allowed to escape rushed across the street and inundated to the height of several feet the houses standing on the fiat. The quantity of water that poured into one ,of the houses was so great that it reached the bed on which some members of the family were sleeping. Between St. Benedict’s Church and Mr. Pemell’s mills the gutter excavated for laying down the gas-pipe was washed clean out, leaving the pipe exposed. In Botany-street many of the houses standing in the hollows were also inundated, and rnueh of the furniture belonging to the inmates injured. In some houses the water rose several feet, and floated the tables, &c., about the rooms. The mai’ket gardens in that locality suffered severely—many of them were completely submerged. At Redfern, and on the Waterloo estate, the damage sustained has been by no means inconsiderable. On the Botany road, at the small stone bridge, the action of the water has swept away a portion of the road-way, and the adjacent bank. Further on, at James-street, leading into the same thoroughfare, the whole of the intersecting

road lias been completely uprooted, and the korbing, composed of large stones, displaced all the way up. The sides of the main road in that immediate locality have likewise been washed away, and the neighbouring garden of Mr. Macauley, lying between the main road and the railway, and in a high state of cultivation, has been entirely overwhelmed, and now remains deeply covered with sand. Several houses between Botany Hoad and Bullanamingstreet were flooded three or four feet deep, the water having there rushed in a fearful volume across the Bulianaming-street, and the higher ground beyond. At this particular place there appears strangely enough, to be no regular outlet whatever provided. In some cases the front gardens of houses have been choked with sand, two-and-a-half or three feet deep; and water is still running in large quantities towards the end of Botany-street. Another contributor writes respecting the damage done by the late rains at Redfern and Waterloo as follows : —The damage done in these localities, both to public and private property, by the recent rains, is very considerable. In George, Pitt, and Bul-ianaming-street, which have been recently partly formed by the Redfern Municipal Council, nearly the whole of the soil laid upon each street between Redfern and Waterloo has been washed away, and gullies of from six to eight feet in depth have been cut by the rush of water, so as to render these streets all but impassable in some places, while in other parts, on the Waterloo, they arc nothing but complete quagmires; many of the houses have been flooded, and in some of them the furniture, which the unfortunate inmates had not time to remove, is imbedded in the sand to the depth of two or three feet. In like manner, many of the small gardens in the neighbourhood have been laid completely under water and sand has been washed from the higher grounds; and the growing crops have been in some places partially, and in others entirely destroyed. In George-street, the sand and silt has washed down from Redfern-street so as almost to choke up Wells-street, covering the kerbing, guttering, and pathway with an immense accumulation of sand, which it will take some time to remove. In Jamesstreet it is still worse. The rush of water coming through this narrow lane from Pittstrect is so great that it has torn up every inch of the kerbing and guttering which has been laid down j not a single Stone remains in the place where it was originally laid, and many of them, though of considerable size and weight, have been tossed by the force of the current from one side of the street to the other, or carried yards away from the place in which they had been fixed. It was estimated that the depth of water which fell during the late rains must have been between six and seven inches. At some parts of the railway the water rose upwards of thirty feet above its usual level. At Penrith, the Nepean rose twenty-five feet above the platform of the bridge. Cattle, horses, pigs, stacks of hay, miles of fencing uprooted, and thousands of bushels of maize were carried away by the floods, and totally destroyed. At Camden the flood was some ten feet deep in several houses, while at Canterbury there was a rise in the river of sixteen feet, and many of the houses where much flooded. There was one sheet of water along the lowlands of Cornwallis, Clifton, Clarendon to Richmond, and thence along Rickaby’s Creek a fearful sea. The Southern Railway bad been very seriously damaged, but the Commissioner and Engineer-in-Chief for Railways had inspected the parts where the injury had been inflicted, and a large number of men having been set to work, it was hoped that the traffic would not long continue interrupted.