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70
WATER-SUPPLY.
ceedingly gradual. This concurs with the alleged
experience of Aberdeen, where it is said by Professor
Clark to have been found (to my mind, by
a somewhat dangerous trial) that pure and soft
water, distributed on the principle of constant supply,
does not exert on the leaden pipes any action injurious
to the health of the population. You will
likewise observe, that when hard water, as at present
employed in the City, is softened by boiling,
it acquires this property of pure water, and becomes
capable of acting on lead: and here is an important
observation, as it has been proposed by similar
artificial means, employed on a very large scale, to
soften all the water now distributed in the metropolis.
Obviously—as regards one and all of the many
proposals for supplying water destitute of hardening
ingredients, any chemical process, or any change of
source, which might lead to the distribution of such
pure water through the metropolis, could not be
considered as a single and separate reform, but
must be undertaken conjointly with such alterations
in the distributive arrangements as might be requisite
for removing from the new plan any chance,
however slight or remote, of injuring the population by
metallic poison.
What those alterations must be, it would now be
premature to decide. The experience of Aberdeen
might seem to suggest, that the system of constant
supply (on all other accounts so eminently desirable