On Water Supply, principally as applied to Domestic Purposes. 
By E. J. Morean. 
(Read January 14th, 1885.) 
In bringing these remarks before the meeting I may mention 
that they consist chiefly of facts collected from the best available 
authorities, and that there is no claim for originality. The subject 
of water, and water supply, has been approached from all sides, and 
has been so thrashed out, as it were, that there is little room for 
novelty in dealing with the question ; and it is doubtful whether, 
excepting the case of the improvement in filters, there has been 
any material advance in our knowledge during the last 40 years, 
or in the practical application of the principles admitted generally. 
An abundant supply of water is one of the chief necessaries of 
life, and a most important condition of health, How essential is 
it, then, that this supply should be obtained from the best source 
and delivered in the purest state. 
At all times, in all nations and climates, its possession has 
been looked to as the greatest blessing, its privation as the greatest 
curse. In Scripture the digging of a well is often mentioned 
among the most important acts of some great tribe. To destroy 
a fountain, as an act of vengeance, was counted a terrible crime 
among an Oriental people, which might call up before the eyes 
of its perpetrator the spectre of parched wretches laying them- 
selves down to meet the most torturing death upon the burning 
sand. . 
Fountains of water were blessed by the priests among pristine 
nations, they were consecrated by the primitive church, and at 
the present day, in the British Empire, the name given to many 
wells, after some patron saint, represents a respect often older 
than Christianity, since, in many instances, the fountain had been 
worshipped in the old Pagan days and the Christian missionary 
