1896.] Past, Present and Future Water Supply of London. 53 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Eriday, February 21, 1896. 



Sir Feederick Abel, Bart. K.C.B. D.C.L. LL.D. E.R.S. 



Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Edward Frankland, Esq. D.C.L. LL.D. For. Sec. K.S. 3I.i?.I. 



The Past, Present and Future Water Supply of London. 



In a discourse to the Members of the Eoyal Institution on the subject 

 of the metropolitan water supply nearly thirty years ago, I stated that 

 out of every thousand people existing upon this planet at that moment 

 three lived in London ; and, as the population of London has in the 

 meantime doubtless grown at a more rapid rate than that of the rest 

 of the world, it will j^i'^^bably be no exaggeration to say that now, 

 out of every thousand people alive on this earth, four live in London ; 

 and therefore any matter which immediately concerns the health and 

 comfort of this vast mass of humanity may well merit our most 

 earnest attention. Amongst such matters that of the supply, in 

 sufficient quantity, of palatable and wholesome water is certainly not 

 the least in importance. 



It is not therefore surprising that this subject has received much 

 attention from several Royal Commissions, notably from the Royal 

 Commission on "Water Supply of 1867, j^resided over by the Dnke of 

 Richmond ; the Royal Commission on the Pollution of Rivers and 

 Domestic Water Supply of Great Britain, presided over by the late 

 Sir William Denison, of which I had the honour to be a member; 

 and lastly the Royal Commission appointed in 1892 to inquire into 

 the water supply of the metropolis, of which Lord Balfour of Burleigh 

 was chairman, and of which Professor Dewar was a member. 



The Royal Institution has also, for nearly three-quarters of a 

 century, been prominently connected with the investigation and 

 imjDrovement of the metropolitan water supply, no less than four of 

 our professors of chemistry having been successively engaged in this 

 work, viz. Professors Brande, Odling, Dewar and mys(jlf, whilst three 

 of them have been members of the Royal Commissions just mentioned.- 

 I may therefore perhaps be excused for accej^ting the invitation of our 

 secretary to bring the subject under your notice for the third time. 



On the present occasion, I propofje to consider it from three points 

 of view, viz. the past, the present and the future ; and for reasons 

 which will appear hereafter, I shall divide the past from the present 

 at or about the year 1883, and will not go back further than the 

 year 1828, when Dr. Brande, Professor of Chemistry in the Royal 



