View report page

97
Water Supply. In view of the importance of the question of
the water supply of London, the following statements and
tables extracted from the annual report of Professor E.
Frankland are interesting.
The district is supplied by the Southwark and Yauxhall
and the Lambeth Water Companies which draw their
water from the Thames at Hampton and Molesey.
As regards filtration, Professor Frankland says:—"The
samples of water collected and examined by me were
invariably clear and bright. Even when analysis showed
the admission of flood water, the water actually supplied
to consumers was always efficiently filtered, and, during
the entire year, there was no such exceptional pollution as
that which occurred sometimes in the previous twelve
months."
As to the chemical examination of the water,
"The comparatively small proportion of organic material
which the solid matter invariably contains is of great
importance in connection with the use of the water for
drinking purposes. For, although the actual amount of
organic matter is often quite insignificant, yet it may be
of the most objectionable character on account of its
origin. Thus the water of the Thames receives, above the
point where it is abstracted for the purpose of the
metropolitan supply, various contributions of organic
matter of animal origin, such as the drainage of manured
lands, the eflluent from sewage works, and even raw
sewage itself. This animal matter may, at any time, be
accompanied by zymotic poisons dangerous to health, and
although the chances of such matter reaching the water
consumer are enormously reduced, both by the care which
is exercised in excluding the flood waters from the
reservoirs, and especially by the efficient filtration to which