Streams on The Peak
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Submitted by Richard Muirhead on Sat, 2015-05-09 03:15
Is it possible that a stream existed in 1909 from below Mountain Lodge to the Botanical Gardens? I am following up a story and I need to know.
Richard Muirhead
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I don't think that's possible
I don't think that's possible, as Mountain Lodge is on the far side of the Peak from the Botanical Gardens. The Lodge's gardens do form part of the catchment for a stream, but that runs over the waterfall you pass on Harlech Road, then on down to Pok Fu Lam Reservoir.
Regards, David
Streams on the Peak
I agree with David. The 1909 map at www.gwulo.com/atom/14774 shows what appears to be a stream rising above the Botanical Gardens in the area between Queens Gardens and Conduit Road then running downhill under Conduit and Robinson Roads. It then disappears from the map at the top of the road labelled Glenealy which forms the west side of the Botanical Gardens. Despite not being marked on the map, the stream must have continued to run downhill, probably close to the line of Glenealy. Previously this area had been known as the Glenealy Ravine or Nullah.
Giant salamanders in a Peak stream
The reason I asked about streams is(and this may seem far fetched) that on July 3rd 1953,a Mr Alfred H.Crook had a letter from him published in the S.China Morning Post in which he says that in 1909 he released 2 giant salamanders "in a stream on the Peak which flowed from near Mountain Lodge and emptied itself into the sea near Pokfulam. Years afterwards I went to the Zoological Gardens here in London to see a giant salamander which was on exhibit there. The announcement said it had been obtained in Hong Kong. I often wondered if it was one of the grand-children of the ones I had let loose in the stream on the Peak." He is talking about the salamander once called Megalobatrachus sligoi, found in 1922. Of course surely the only possibility is the salamander(s) found its way into the conduit running clockwise round the northern side of Victoria Peak.Did the conduit go anywhere near the Botanical Gardens between 1909 and 1922?
Does there need to be any
Does there need to be any connection to Hong Kong's Botanical Gardens? Mr Crook says that he saw the salamander in "the Zoological Gardens here in London".
He doesn't say where in Hong Kong the salamander had been found, so it could have been anywhere along the stream's route from the Peak to the sea near Pokfulam.
Regards, David
In reply to David re HK Salamander
My impression was that Mr Crook was linking the salamander found at the Botanical Gardens in 1922 with the ones he released in 1909 and the one he saw after 1922 in London.In his letter to the South China Morning Post in 1953 he definetely makes these connections.
Salamanders
Aha, I hadn't realised there was a report of one found in the Botanical Gardens in 1922.
Back to the conduit idea. It did bring water around from Pokfulam reservoir to mid-levels (you can see it on the left of this 1909 map: http://gwulo.com/node/9285). Not sure if wildlife could have made it that far though. Hopefully they'd have been filtered out by the time water reached mid-levels.
Regards, David
Salamanders
Yes I thought my idea of salamanders traveling along the conduit was a long shot.