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flowed its banks in October and in January, and
by washing the cultivated fields and receiving the
contents of suddenly flushed sewers of Oxford,
Windsor, and Reading, had become contaminated
with an unusually large proportion of organic
impurity. In a letter from Mr. Coe, the Secretary
of the Grand Junction Water Company—
in reply to a desire expressed by the Public
Health Committee to learn if the Directors have
under their consideration any measures that could
be suggested to remedy the pollution of the water,
it appears that in 1866, five Thames Water Companies
lent their assistance to the passing of an act
for the re-modelling of the Thames Conservancy
Board, and for the adoption of stringent measures to
prevent the flowing into the river of the sewage of
towns and other noxious matters, and the Companies
voluntarily bound themselves to contribute the
sum of £1000 per annum each to the Conservancy
Commissioners for the purpose of carrying these
objects into effect. The act of 1866 extended to
the tributaries of the Thames for three miles in a
direct line beyond the point of junction, and was
supplemented by a further Act in 1867.
The extreme limit of time allowed for accomplishing
the total interception of all town drainage,
&c. was three years from the passing of the Act,
which period will terminate in the early autumn of
the present year. The Water Supply Committee
of the House of Commons of 1867 recommends