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13
Southwark and Vauxhall Company the worst. This
superiority is due to the West Middlesex Company
having a large subsidence and filtration plant, so that
it is not compelled to take in water during floods, and
is able uniformly to deliver it in an efficiently filtered
condition.
During the months of January, March, April,October
and December, the water drawn from the Thames,
owing to heavy rains, was wholly unfit for dietetic
purposes. These heavy rains, more particularly in
the month of December, converted stagnant pools and
ditches into tributary streams, causing the river to
overflow its banks, and, on returning to its natural
channel, to carry with it the accumulated filth of the
dry summer months, and the washings of the adjacent
richly manured and cultivated lands; so that when it
reached the intakes of the Companies loaded with
organic impurities, the water was incapable of being
rendered by subsidence and filtration or any other
process fit for domestic use. Nevertheless it was so
delivered to its consumers. These impurities, being of
animal origin, make the water more objectionable, and
its use not without danger to health. The sediment
deposited by it on standing almost always reveals
living and moving organisms. Such organisms during
the year were on three occasions discovered in the
water of the Grand Junction Company.
The annexed tables exhibit some of the results of
Dr. Frankland's observations, and of his microscopical