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55
river bed. The Royal Commissioners contemplating taking 300
million gallons from the Thames daily, trusting to the fact that
the average daily flow at Teddington weir is about 1,350
million gallons ; but Mr. Binnie shows that during certain dry
months the total average flow would often only slightly exceed
the amount of water required by the Companies, and in such a
case as that of September, 1893, the total flow would not
come up to the requirements. If the extreme minimum flow
per twenty-four hours is taken, the difficulty of providing a
supply both for the River and the Metropolis is still more
apparent.
Tests Not to be Relied on.
There is a good deal of common sense in some of the
remarks in the reports about the safety, or otherwise, of polluted
waters. Mr. Binnie draws attention to the fact that "the Royal
Commissioners received, although they do not quote it, some
very strong evidence from one of the highest authorities,
namely, Sir G. Buchanan, M.D., F.R.S., late Chief Medical
Officer to the Local Government Board." This evidence was
to the effect that neither chemical nor bacteriological tests were
to be relied on as to the purity of water, that we did not know
how small an amount of morbific material, if it gained access to
the water, might set up disease, and that the way to gain
information as to purity and safety was to search out the
conditions surrounding water courses and water services.
Asked what would be his treatment of the water if it were
found to be polluted, he could only answer that "there was
nothing for it but either to boil the polluted water, or else to
leave it alone."
In face of such evidence from such an authority we turn
with interest to the paragraphs in Mr. Binnie's report summarising
the pollutions of the Thames water, which the
Commission thinks good enough for London. It seems that at
the census of 1891 there was a population of 1,056,415 persons
draining into the river above the intakes, and that in the last