J827.J Supply furnished to the Metropolis. 461 



The steam-engine homo, &c. of the company stands upon the banks of 

 the river Thames next door if we may be allowed to use a vulgarism, 

 which perhaps will best convey the idea we mean to express to Chelsea 

 Hospital. Between the grounds belonging to the engine-house and those 

 of the hospital, and dividing them by a distance of about twelve feet, runs 

 the '" great Ranelagh sewer ;" and, directly abreast of this sewer, not 

 thirty yards advanced into the bed of the river from the mouth of it, lies 

 the Dolphin from which the Grand Junction Company takes its water. 



Mr. Coe says, in his answer to " The Dolphin " pamphlet " 1. The 

 frontispiece of the pamphlet, which professes to give a view of the Dolphin, 

 whence the supply of the Grand Junction Company is drawn, gives a false 

 (and it is difficult to conceive not a wilfully false) impression of the real state 

 of the case. The Dolphin is much more distant from the sewer than the plate 

 represents ; but what is still more material to observe it is completely . 

 above, so as to make it utterly impossible that one drop of the sewer water 

 can reach it : during the ebb and during the flood, the issue of any water 

 from the sewer is completely stopped. 2. The delineation of the minor 

 common sewers in the same plan is an absolute falsehood, the two upper 

 being the openings by which the Chelsea Hospital derives its supply of 

 water from the Thames, and the lower only a temporary opening, whilst 

 the Ranelagh sewer is repairing, across the mouth of which a dam has 

 been built, so that not one drop of water has issued from it since last 

 October." 



. Now, certainly, we think that Mr. Coe here is mistaken. In all its 

 material bearings, Mr. Wright's drawing is a fair one. The Grand Junc- 

 tion Dolphin as it appeared to us upon actual inspection is certainly not 

 " above" the Ranelagh sewer, but directly abreast of it so directly, that, 

 supposing that sewer to be full, as it is in rainy weather, when it empties 

 out suddenly the impurities which have long been accumulating, it is 

 hardly possible to doubt that its whole stream of filth and foulness must 

 run directly upon the company's Dolphin, and be taken up with the water 

 which may be pumping in from it. When the Ranelagh sewer is full and 

 swollen with rain, we should say that, even with the river also full, and 

 the tide running smartly, the rush from the sewer would be sufficient to 

 penetrate the stream of the river, and to reach the Dolphin. But, besides 

 these cases of mischief from occasional floods, upon ordinary occasions, we 

 think that there would be two periods in every day, when the water taken 

 up would also be impure. While the tide is flowing up, the flood-gates of 

 all the sewers are of course closed ; or, if they were open, the contents 

 would not issue, but be forced backwards with the entering water. And, 

 while the tide is running fast down, the stream that issues from the sewer 

 if small would be at once carried away along the shore by the force of 

 Ihe ebb, without getting far into the bed of the river. But, at the time of low 

 water, and for a while previous to and after that period when the body of 

 water in the river is small, and for a time almost stationary then the stream 

 pouring out from the sewer, even although slight, being carried neither 

 upwards nor downwards by any tide, would make its way directly into 

 the river, and towards the company's Dolphin ; and if it so happened that 

 the stream from the sewer was copious at such a moment, the effect would 

 go far beyond this, and almost the whole quantity of water taken up at tho 

 Dolphin during the interval described would be pumped from its contents. 



It is true, as Mr. Coe states, that at the present moment a dam is built 

 across the mouth of this Ranelagh sewer, for the purpose of repair, and that 



