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84
WATER SUPPLY.
The water supply question, always an important one in relation
with the public health, has acquired new and special interest of late,
on account of proposals submitted to Parliament with a view to the
purchase, on behalf of the ratepayers, of the eight undertakings by
which the Metropolis is supplied with this necessary of life. I have
always thought it desirable that your Vestry, as the body responsible
in this great parish for carrying into effect the provisions of sanitary
legislation, should receive, year by year, the best and latest available
information on all points connected with the water question, and it
has been my custom, therefore, to summarise the reports by Professor
Frankland, prepared annually for the Registrar-General.
Of late years I have been enabled, in addition, to furnish a summary
of interesting facts supplied in monthly reports by Colonel Bolton, the
" Water Examiner " under the " Water Act, 1871." Dr. Franldand's
report deals mainly with the quality of the water in its chemical
and microscopical aspects, and in relation to its fitness for dietetic
and domestic purposes ; his opinion, as is well known, being adverse
to riparian sources of supply : whereas Colonel Bolton's observations
have reference inter alia to the condition of the water in bulk at the
intakes, and to its physical qualities when delivered to consumers—in
other words to the machinery of collection, subsidence, filtration,
storage, and distribution.
London is mainly supplied from the rivers Thames and Lea, and
the New River ; but a considerable and increasing quantity of water
is obtained from deep wells sunk in the chalk, not only by the
Companies which obtain their entire supply from that source but also
by some of the old Companies which thus supplement their intake of
river water.
Dr. Frankland is as emphatic as ever in his commendation of this
" deep well water," and takes it as the standard of purity in comparative
observations on the waters generally. He describes it as being " delicious
and wholesome " and uniformly excellent for dietetic purposes;
maintaining that in the interests of temperance and public health it
should as soon as possible be substituted for that portion of the Metropolitan
supply which is drawn from polluted rivers. This "pure
spring water," moreover, is "everywhere abundant in the Thames