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60
WATER-SUPPLY.
an effect, I may observe, analogous to those skindisorders
of the human subject which are apt to
occur from impairment of the digestive functions.
Taking into account all these considerations, together
with others of a more technical description;
and believing that water is eligible for human consumption
in proportion as it is free from the admixture
of any material foreign to its simple elementary
constitution—exception being made only
of so much dissolved air as will render it sparkling
and palatable; I entertain no doubt that a water,
devoid of considerable hardness, would (cæteris paribus)
for the purposes of cooking and beverage,
be far preferable to that which the companies now
distribute through the City of London.
Hitherto, however, I have spoken of the waters
supplied to the City, merely as regards that large
impregnation of earthy material which they gather
from their source; and I have criticised them only
in respect of that admixture. Their essential chemical
quality is one native to the soil from which
they are derived; and whatever censure thus far
belongs to them could only have been avoided by
the selection of a different source. Chemistry, in the
days of Morrys and Myddleton, was not sufficiently
advanced to inform the water-merchants of a city on
those different conditions which determine the fitness
of a soil to serve as the natural or artificial gathering-ground
of a supply, and by which (as they vary
in different localities) hardness is imparted to the