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27
District.
ples during the whole year. Looking only at the average
results of each filter, the record is a bad one, for it was
only No. 3 filter which delivered water containing fewer
than 100 microbes per cubic centimetre, and one sample
only of this water was examined; but an inspection of
the separate numbers in the table shows that this would
not be a fair statement of the case. Thus, No. 4 filter
only infringed the bacterial standard twice during the
year, and this occurred when the raw Thames water was
bacterially very impure." With regard to the Lambeth
Company, he says:—" In the first three months of the
year the number of microbes largely exceeded 100 per
cubic centimetre. This occurred during the continuance
of the severe frosts, which seriously affected the filtration
plant of all the companies. Except in these months,
the water delivered by the Lambeth Company was of
most excellent bacterial quality; and in November,
when the raw Thames water contained 29,260 microbes
per cubic centimetre, the filtered water delivered by this
Company contained only 8." It is, therefore, clear that,
though the filtration by the Companies is very generally
efficient, there have been times when we have been in
danger of drinking a considerable number of microbes,
some of which may be of the disease-producing kinds.
It must be a possible danger as long as Thames water
is used for drinking, and we depend on filtration as our
only safeguard. Another point to which Professor
Frankland draws attention is the great chemical purification
obtained by the filtration of the water through
sand.
In the early part of the year very much inconvenience
was caused in this district by the frost interrupting
almost entirely the domestic supplies. There was no
evidence however of the production of illness from the
want of water. An enquiry was held by the Water Examiner,
on behalf of the Local Government Board, as to