Supply of Water to the Metropolis. 261 



to believe, must have formed his opinion, not from the supply of 

 the Company, but from the contents of a cistern in want of 

 cleansing. 



" To neglect in cleansing out cisterns they have indeed, in num- 

 berless instances, been enabled to trace a complaint of the quality 

 of the water, and they do in consequence protest most decidedly 

 against any judgment upon the water supplied by the Company, 

 unless it shall have been formed from specimens fairly taken, and 

 in the presence of their own officers. Without going at present 

 into greater length to point out the causes which may have misled 

 the judgments of the respectable authors of the very extraordinary 

 opinions which have been published upon this head, the directors 

 pledge themselves to prove satisfactorily before the committee the 

 utter incorrectness of those opinions. 



" In fact, whilst it is true that, during a part of the winter, water 

 drawn from the Thames is turbid, it is no less true that, except 

 during floods, it is, even when fresh drawn from the stream, ex- 

 ceedingly good, and that the water served by the Company is at 

 this moment, as it has been for many weeks, bright and pure. 



*' To be foul from floods during a portion of the year, is of course 

 common to all rivers, though not in an equal degree : the waters 

 of a large river, and which derives its supply from a vast extent 

 of country, will be less likely to become completely turbid than 

 the waters of a smaller stream, all the sources of which may be 

 affected by the influence of one heavy rain ; and the directors are 

 well persuaded, that of all the rivers that could be made available 

 for the supply of London, the Thames ranks decidedly the first; 

 indeed it was reserved for this occasion to impeach the quality of 

 the waters of this noble stream, which has hitherto been supposed 

 to stand as unrivalled in this as in all other respects. 



" To remedy this defect, and to enable the Company to supply 

 bright water at all seasons, the directors have for now nearly three 

 years been devoting an unremitting attention. In 1824 the opi- 

 nions of three of the most eminent engineers were taken as to 

 the best mode of effecting this object; two of them recommended 

 additional reservoirs at Paddington, with a feeding main from the 

 river, distinct from the mains that supply the Company's district 

 from the reservoirs ; — the third recommended reservoirs at Chel- 

 sea : in either case it was pronounced the Company would possess 

 unrivalled means of affording to London a supply of water pure 

 and abundant. 



" The Company in the end adopted, not one^ but both of these 

 plans ; and the additional works were commenced in the beginning 

 of 1825. The Company now possess, at Paddington, three reser- 

 voirs of eight acres, and are about to make three additional reser- 

 voirs, at Chelsea, of four acres : when all are completed, they 

 will afford such means of giving a supply of pure water, as have 

 never yet been equalled, or, they might say, even approached in 

 ancient or modern times. 



