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together with gases it holds in solution, and inorganic matter
which is suspended in it. After it has undergone this
change it is much preferred, from its purity and non-liability
to further change. During the process it is not only unfit,
but dangerous to use.*
Inorganic matters owe their presence in water to the
banks of the natural basin which contained it, or to the
channel or bed of the river through or over which it flows,
and will, of course, vary according to the nature and composition
of the geological formation.
What we deem desirable in water supply may be very
briefly expressed, viz.:—1st, abundance, 2nd, purity.
But supposing the two conditions to be so far in opposition
that under ordinary circumstances water cannot be
supplied in unlimited quantity, and of a quality fitted for
drinking and domestic use, as, for instance, it is, when subjected
to the process introduced at Plumstead by Dr. Clark,
of Aberdeen, and which consists in at once softening and
purifying water by precipitating the chalk and organic
* I wish to confine my remarks to the water which is consumed for drinking
especially, in our own district, and to make only such general observations
as are pertinent to the preservation of the health of that portion of the
public over which it is my duty to watch. With regard to the Thames
water, and its purification by fermentation or decomposition, the improvement
which is the result of the process, appears, on the authority of the
"Annuaire des caux de France," to be an exception to the rule. "Except
in rare instances, waters which hold in solution a remarkable proportion of
organic matters, putrefy quickly, and acquire hurtful properties. It is very
evident that diarrhoea, dysentery, and other acute and chronic maladies,
have been endemically determined by the continued use of pond, marsh, or
well water, holding too great proportions of changed organic matters either
in suspension or solution. It is admitted, then, as a result of general observation,
that, all conditions being equal, the less water, for drinking, contains
of organic matter, the better it is."—Annuaire des eaux de France.