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expenditure, but it is questionable if this need be at all considerable
if the present insanitary and clumsy method of cartage of the
dust to Lambeth, sorting and sifting by hand labour, and the
removal of the refuse by barges, were replaced by a well thought
out scheme of dust destruction and utilisation of heat, carried
out in the parish.
Water Supply.—The New River Company supplies the
whole of Clerkenwell on the constant system. The supply is
practically the filtered water of the River Lee, as, according to
the last edition of Bolton's "London Water Supply," the New
River Company distributes an average daily supply of 25,271,743
gallons of filtered water, only 4,820,385 gallons are obtained
from springs and wells, the remaining 20,451,358 gallons being
taken from the Lee, near Ware. This Lee water has received
the drainage of manured and cultivated land, the more or less
crude sewage from towns and villages on its banks, and has
become grossly polluted. The processes relied upon to effect its
purification are storage, to allow of settlement of the suspended
matters, and filtration through sand. The Company uses a layer
of very fine sand 1•8 feet thick, and it must be admitted that its
action is wonderfully efficient. Suspended matter is almost
entirely removed. According to Professor Frankland, the amount
of suspended matter in the filtered water "rarely if ever exceeds
0•0002 grain in a tumblerfull, and therefore, in order to imbibe
a single grain, it would be necessary for the consumer to drink
no less than 5,000 tumblers full of water. The amount of
organic matter in solution is also, to a certain extent, diminished
by being oxidised or burnt up; and no less than 98 to 99 per
cent. of germs or microbes are removed."
The following table, which shows the maximum, minimum
and average proportions of organic matter, as measured by the
standard of the very pure water from the deep wells of the Kent
Company taken as unity, is interesting and exhibits the
superiority of the New River Company over all other Companies
taking water from the Lee or the Thames:—