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68
WATER-SUPPLY.
public; but in a matter of so much importance to
the health of the City, as that of participating in a
supply of pure water, collected and distributed on
the soundest principles, and sold at the cheapest
rate, I did not think it would become me, as your
Officer of Health, to remain an indolent auditor. I
have felt it my duty to inform myself, so far as I
could, on the real merits of this scheme, and on its
probable relation hereafter to the sanitary condition
of the metropolis. I have spent three days on the
site of the proposed sources, and many other days
in informing myself on all the bearings of the subject.
I have likewise collected water from a proposed
tributary of the future supply, which has
been analysed, and which shows (as my Appendix
will illustrate to you) a remarkable and rare excellence.
On one occasion of visiting the country, I
was accompanied by Mr. T. Taylor, and we made
on the spot a sufficient number of extemporaneous
examinations, to assure us that the essential features,
shewn in the more elaborate analysis, are
(as geological considerations would lead us to believe)
the general characters of water throughout
the district.
On any other than the sanitary relations of this
subject I can have nothing officially to say; but,
confining myself to these relations, I may certify to
your Honourable Court that the water in question
is, in my judgment, of a quality admirably suited for
domestic purposes; that its distribution through the