View report page

41
enormous proportions, as in thousands of tons.
Dr. Taylor, however, thinks that "a gallon of water
is an intelligible quantity. A man," he says, "may
easily calculate within what period of time he consumes
a gallon by daily use, and with it the 21
grains of innocent solid substances contained in it.
This is preferable to a system now adopted of giving
the assumed constitution of 100,000 tons, or a corresponding
number of kilogrammes or cubic metres
of water. So enormous a quantity is, of course,
beyond the reach of chemical analysis, and the tons
of chalk, salt, and organic matter said to exist
therein are only arrived at by multiplication. A
ton of water represents 224 gallons. Within what
period of time will a ton of water be consumed by
any unit of the community? The answer to this
question will show that such modes of laying plain
matters before the public are more sensational than
practical." The Royal Commission on Water have
expressed themselves to the same effect, for at page
93 of their report, after condemning the term "impurities"
as used by Dr. Frankland, they say, "And
further, we cannot but consider it unphilosophical
when, in addition to treating as 'impurities' substances
perfectly harmless even in much larger quantities,
the minute quantities present in a gallon, or
any other small measure of water, are multiplied by
taking masses of water, such as the individual never