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will not be much longer delayed. The same may be said
of the wished-for adoption, at no distant day, of Clark's
softening process, by which hard water drawn even from
deep artesian wells, it has been shown, could be made
to supply the Metropolis and its suburbs with a most
potable and wholesome fluid. A very interesting table, showing
the value of Clark's process, will be found in one of Paofessor
Frankland's recent reports to the Registrar General.
In this table the extent of sold impurity, hardness, and
other qualities of certain waters, are fully set forth, both
before and after Clark's process had been applied. These
experiments were made in the provinces, at Caterham,
Tring, and Canterbury, and in London, at the Grand
Junction Company's Works, and every one of them with
the most satisfactory results. In hardness, the difference
before and after the process was strikingly great in all the
waters experimented upon. To give only one example—
the hardness of the water at Canterbury before the process
was found to be 26.3, but after the process 4.9. In this
same water the total solid impurity was, before the process,
33.60; after it, 11.94. So also of all the other waters
examined.
If, as Dr. Frankland states, "the cost of this process is
far more than covered by the saving of soap which it
effects," there can be very few who will not join in the
hope that this method of supplying London with good and
wholesome water will be ultimately embodied in an Act of
Parliament, and become very generally adopted. The
generally received opinion amongst those who have given
attention to the subject being that the germs of many of
the maladies of the Zymtoic class reside in impure water,
and are often propagated and diffused through its agency,
it is hoped it will be considered by no means an unreasonable
view for the Health Officers to take of this great
question, that an immense saving of life might be effected,
amongst the poor especially, by (1) the grant of the great
boon of constant supply, and (2) by the adoption of some
efficient means of purifying and of softening all water