View report page

24
rejected the plan of his predecessor in office,
requested Mr. Hawksley to report upon the subject.
His scheme, for which a sum of £17000 was
subsequently voted by parliament, differed from
all which had been previously proposed, in that it
was founded upon the assumption, that the only
respect in which the condition of the water of the
Serpentine required amendment, was the disagreeable
appearance caused by the existence in it of
minute microscopical plants. This object was to be
secured by causing the Serpentine to circulate
through filter beds of sand, so that a thirtieth part
of its whole bulk might pass daily through the
filter during the six hottest months, a sixtieth
during four of the colder months, leaving it at rest
during the remainder of the year. Of this scheme
it is sufficient to say that it has been finally condemned,
after a prolonged investigation by a
select Committee of the House of Commons; and
that in consequence the very extensive works
which have disfigured Kensington Gardens during
the winter have been abandoned. It is now proposed
to sink a well at the head of the Serpentine,
and to employ the engine which was intended to
be used for working the filtration, partly for
pumping water out of the well, the supply from
which is expected to amount to 500,000 gallons
a day, and partly to pump the water through
the conduit from the bottom of the lake to the
top, so as to produce a continuous current. It