Department of Ports and Harbours,
Brisbane, 26th August, 1891.
SIR,--I have the honour to submit, for your information, the following
Report concerning this Department for the past year:--
I assumed charge on the 1st July, 1890, and found that the heavy gales
and floods experienced in January of the same year had most seriously
affected several of the dredged cuttings of the Brisbane, Mary, Burnett,
and Fitzroy Rivers. In some places the Brisbane River had silted up to
such an extent that there were fully 18 inches less water than before
the flood. This, however, only proved a temporary inconvenience, as the
dredges soon restored the cuttings to their original depths. I also
found that considerable changes had taken place in the formation of the
banks at the northern entrance to Moreton Bay, necessitating the
removal--to make the lead effective--of Tangaluma Light (which had only
been established in 1885), also the removal (for the fourth time) of the
Yellow Patch Light, and the building of two new cottages for the
lightkeepers. Owing to the encroachment of the sea, it had also been
found necessary to remove Comboyuro Point Lighthouse and the keeper's
cottage some 200 feet further inland. This work was accomplished by the
Inspector, Mr. H. L. Pethebridge. The floating beacon which marked the
northern entrance to the port had been ashore on Bribie Island for some
time, but, during the first interval of settled westerly weather, she
was floated and brought to Brisbane to be repaired and supplied with new
moorings, after which she was on the 8th August replaced in her former
position, and by the end of October the works of the Department
generally, which had suffered in the early portion of the year, were
restored.
In January and February of the present year another series of heavy
gales was experienced along the whole coast of the Colony, and on the
6th, 7th, and 8th of June a gale of unusual severity, accompanied by
torrents of rain, swept along the coast from Bowen southwards, causing
heavy seas and abnormally high tides. Such unfavourable weather, of
course, occasioned considerable loss to the Department, a great number
of buoys being driven from their moorings (some lost altogether), and
beacons and other plant receiving a large amount of damage.