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64
WATER-SUPPLY.
which has been stored in cisterns are so repugnant
to the taste, that the water chemically preferable is
not in practice preferred.
To the use of waters of this description, within
a large City, there is always much objection. In
addition to extreme hardness, which in London they
universally possess, they are liable, in a dangerous
degree, to become contaminated by the leakage of
drains, and by other sources of impurity; as, for
instance, where situated within the immediate vicinity
of grave-yards, they derive products of animal
decomposition from the soil*. Very recently, a celebrated
pump within the City of London, that adjoining
St. Bride's church-yard, has been abandoned
on account of such impregnations. Or perhaps I
should rather say (for the difference again illustrates
the readiness with which the palate is deceived or
corrupted) that it was not abandoned—for till almost
the last moment the neighbours adhered to it with
fondness; but the parochial authorities—alarmed
by the proximity of cholera—caused its handle to
be locked.
As an available source of supply to the City of
London, the use of deep (Artesian) wells has been
*This is illustrated in the analysis of Bishopsgate pump-water,
given in my Appendix. The very large quantity of nitrates, there
referred to that water, must be due to the oxidation of human
bodies in the adjoining soil, which serves in part as gatheringground
to the spring. I should fear that, during rain-fall, this
oxidation of organic compounds may not always have completed
itself, and that materials of decomposition still in progress of
decay may thus often be mingled in the water.