Simply put, it meant establishing a tunnel from the Durham Lead to Sebastopol, some eight miles following the old underground river course, where the level of the bedrock et the Durham would be approximately 400 feet below the level in the deepest sections of the deep leads at Sebastopol.

Had the scheme been implemented to a successful issue, it is difficult to conceive what might have been the state of affairs at Sebastopol. But it is certain that large quantities of auriferous stone which cannot now be mined because of the danger of tapping the heavy bodies of water overhead would have been exploited. Further, since the heavy expenditure which had to be borne in pumping the water would be materially reduced, it would then have been possible to profitably raise and treat quartz which under present conditions had to be left in the slopes.

Were the water-logged ground drained and rendered safe to the miner at shallow levels, enormous areas of reef washes would have been made available for operation and it is certain that it would have proved highly remunerative.

It was generally admitted by practical miners that in the Sebastopol Plateau there still exists reaches of alluvial wash,: in high and dry levels as well as in the lower levels, that will pay for lifting, and this has always been one urgent ground on which the more perfect drainage of the area had been demanded.

The Scottish and Cornish Company at Black Lead - south of Sebastopol withdrew their pumps in March 1865 and used only a tank under the cage for bailing. Their neighbours in the Leviathan and Great Gulf claims had pumped the gutter dry.

Great hopes were entertained at one period that the Government would carry out the scheme as a National work, but soon after the Royal Commission investigated the question, a stringency in the finances of the State occured and the undertaking was shelved.