234 ADDITIONAL NOTES ON TREE-TRUNK WATER-PIPES. 



their feet. Will it be unreasonable to infer that nature teaches quadrupeds that 

 in such a state it is not onlv wlwlesome, but actually medicinal? " 



My own view would be that cattle, which tisually find 

 admission to a stream only where it is shallow close to the bank^ 

 and consequently where the muddy bottom is close to the 

 surface, walk towards the centre in order to drink where the 

 water is deeper and clearer, even though they make muddy the 

 stream between the bank and their drinking place. How much 

 light is tlirovvn on the preference of the people of Page Green^ for 

 their shallow well water over that supplied by the local water 

 company, even in 1S65, when we read these views on turbidity 

 of an eminent advocate of waterworks in 1835. 



In the case of the New River we Jearn that its purity 

 suffered to some extent from the state of the criminal law in 



1835: 



" The New River, being an open aqueduct, has one attendant annoyance, 

 which is the practice of bathing in it b\- persons contrary to the wishes and rights 

 of the proprietors. To obviate its continuance, but without, at the same time, 

 depriving those who might be desirous of enjoying the pleasure, several years 

 ago the New River Company liberally offered to supply water gratuitously for 

 the purposes oi free baths, if they were erected for general accommodation at the 

 public expense ; but the offer was unavailing, though the convenience and 

 utility of such an institution must be strikingly evident. The nuisance of public 

 bathing is therefore improperly persisted in, from the company not possessing 

 the power to punish individuals who may commit the offence, except by an 

 action for trespass upon their property, and as the penalty imposed by the law 

 is transportation, considerations of humanit}- have hitherto prevented the 

 prosecution of the offenders," 



The concluding chapter of Hydvaulia is occupied with a 

 description of various scheines then put forward for obtaining 

 water from streams less polluted than the Thames at, or close 

 to, London, such as the \^erulam above Watford and the 

 Wandle at Beddington. The author strongly disapproves of 

 them as needless, and as calculated simply to cause great 

 expense, and to injure the existing companies. As to the 

 alleged deleterious nature of the existing supply, he says : — 



" Various facts related in the preceding pages have shown the fallaciousness 

 of the assertion that tlie refuse from different manufactories imparted deleterious 

 Cjualities to the Thames, and perhaps no statement was ever less supported by 

 rational and creditable testimony. It is indeed far from improbable that the 

 substances, to which the term refuse was applied, have a tendency to promote 

 the decomposition of animal and vegetable matters, and really operate to render 

 the water pure and wholesome. If the water be turbid, it may not be either 

 4. Essex Naturalist, Vol. XIII., p. 72. 



