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65
WATER SUPPLY.
The water supply of Kensington is in the hands of three Companies,
(West Middlesex, Chelsea, and Grand Junction), which
obtain water from the Thames above tidal influence, viz., at
Hampton, Ditton, and Molesey.
Professor Frankland, F.R.S., in his annual report to the
Registrar General on the monthly analysis of the water supplied
by the several Companies in 1877, furnishes some interesting
information, which I propose, as usual to summarise. The average
daily supply by the eight Companies was no less than 120,864,496
gallons. Of this quantity the Professor states 60 million
gallons were sometimes much polluted with sewage matters, 52
million gallons and upwards were occasionally so polluted, but to a
much less degree, whilst 7,230,993 gallons were of unexceptionable
quality. The water he praises is drawn from deep wells in the
chalk by the Kent and Colne Valley Companies, and by the Tottenham
Local Board of Health, of which the quality is described as
so excellent as to render comparison with river waters superfluous.
"It is very desirable both in the interests of temperance and
public health, that this delicious water should, as soon as possible,
be substituted for that portion of the Metropolitan supply which is
drawn from polluted rivers. This spring water, of unsurpassed
purity, palatability, and wholesomeness is everywhere abundant in
the Thames basin. In dry seasons it constitutes the sole supply of
the river, and even after the most protracted drought more than
350,000,000 of gallons of it flow over the weir at Teddington,
whilst a further large volume of it joins the Thames lower down.
Surely it cannot be beyond the powers of Parliament and engineers
to collect and preserve from irretrievable sewage pollution a small
fraction of this prodigal supply, and to distribute it to those portions
of London which at present drink it after it has been mixed with
the sewage of more than half a million of people." The natural
filtration it undergoes through an enormous thickness of chalk
renders artificial filtration unnecessary, and is the cause of its
almost uniform clearness and transparency. Among other advantages
due to its origin, the temperature of this water is never high
enough to make it unpalatable. The maximum temperature of the
Kent water in July was 57°.9 Fahr., and the minimum in March,
45°—the range of temperature thus extended through only 13o.0.
Of the river waters, Professor Frankland speaks in far different
terms. The range of temperature extended through no less than
250.7 Fahr., viz, from 43°.3 in March to 68° in August,
when the water was vapid and unpalatable. It contained among
other solid matters a small proportion of organic substances, which,
always objectionable, are at times dangerous to health—the pollution
being to a great extent of animal origin. The year, however,