View report page

7
communication if the pipes, cocks, cisterns, machinery, or arrangements, as
aforesaid, shall not be in conformity with such regulations."
This section appears to me of very great importance,—the time alluded to in
the Act has now arrived. I trust that owners of property will be sufficiently
alive to the value of a constant supply to exert themselves, and be willing to
incur some expense in order to obtain it; and that Water Companies will not
place obstacles in the way of carrying out the intentions of this clause.
chemical characters op some of the well waters ik the parish.
The Workhouse Well gives a remarkably soft water. It contains a large
quantity of saline ingredients, chiefly alkaline, not earthy; the chlorides and
sulphates predominate. It contains rather a large quantity of oxide of iron.
On the whole, it is a very fair water for drinking; and is especially suited for
washing and cooking. From the large quantity of alkaline sulphates which it
contains, it probably acts on some persons as a laxative. The water comes either
from the Thanet Sands or the upper layers of chalk.
The well in Clarendon Square gives a water in many respects like that
supplied by the Workhouse well; the water comes from the same strata.
A pump in Eitzroy Market supplies an unusually hard water (42° of hardness);
with more than 250 grains of total impurity, and a very large amount of organic
matter. It contains also a notable quantity of nitric acid and ammonia. It is
a water which, in my opinion, ought not to be used for drinking.
The waters from shallow wells in Goodge Street, John Street, and Grafton
Street are soft, they contain a very large amount of organic and inorganic impurities,
and traces of ammonia. These wells are very liable to contamination, by communication
with drains, gas pipes, and by the filtration of water through a porous
stratum, saturated with various kinds of organic residue. Those waters ought not
to be used for drinking.
In the table below are given some results of analysis of some of the abovenamed
waters, performed by different observers at different times. The results
of analysis vary considerably according to the weather and the season of the
year at which the water is obtained; to form a correct notion of the average
quality of the water supplied, it should be analyzed very frequently, and at all
seasons, after all kinds of weather.
MICROSCOPICAL EXAMINATION OF WATER.
New River.—The water from this Company I have examined on several
occasions. Sometimes it has been almost entirely free from distinct animal or
vegetable formations. At others I have found in it polygastric animalcules
(oxytrichse and paramaecia), the shell of an entomostracous animal, apparently
bosminia lagustris, some desmidia; and confervee.
West Middlesex water I have found to contain a few animalculæ, but to be
freer from organic formations than that of the New River Company.
The Hanvpstead Water has varied very much, sometimes presenting little
organic life; at others, I have found a specimen of anguinula fluviatilis, monads,
paramæcia, fungi, and the synedra ulna.
In the Workhouse well water and Fitzroy Market hard pump water I could
detect no organic life. The quantity of nitrates in the latter water would
prevent the growth of animalculæ, so that the absence of animalculæ may, in
some cases, be an effect of impurity instead of a sign of purity.
Dr. Hassall, in January last, reported to the President of the Board of Health,
the results of examinations which he had been making of the water supply of
the various Companies. His conclusions I may give so far as they concern the
Companies which supply this parish.
"The waters supplied by all the Companies still contain numerous living
vegetable and animal productions, especially annelidæ, entomostracia, infusoriæ,
confervæ; desmideæ, diatomacea, and fungi. That they were particularly
abundant amongst others in the water supplied by the New River and Hampstead