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abundance in the autumn attracted by the large supply of their 
natural food, and the same circumstance has been recorded with 
respect to the snowy owls in the north of Europe, following upon 
the migrations of the Lemming. 
The third afternoon meeting was held on Wednesday, 14th of 
January, under the chairmanship of Mr. Skrine, when Mr. 
Morgan contributed a paper on “Water supply, principally as 
applied to domestic purposes” (vide p, 285), and Mr. Clarke gave 
a “Sketch of a trip in the s.s. “Ceylon” to the North Cape and 
Iceland in the summer of 1884.” 
Disclaiming any originality in his remarks, Mr. MorGan stated 
that an abundant water supply is one of the chief necessaries of* 
life, and a most important condition of health. How essential 
was it, then, that the supply should be obtained from the best 
source and delivered in the purest state! Sources of supply— 
quality of water supplied—distinction of hard water from soft— 
purifying water on a large scale—purifying water on a small 
scale by filters—were the five heads into which he divided his 
subject. Rain water, of course, was the purest if collected away 
from the impurities of towns. Of the three sources—wells, rivers, 
or springs—the latter offer the most desirable sources of supply, 
and are either land springs or deep-seated springs. Explaining 
the raison d’étre of springs, he proceeded to speak of the quality of 
the water depending upon the foreign matter contained therein, 
either in a state of mixture or solution ; the hardness of water 
being expressed by the amount of grains of salts of lime or 
Magnesia contained in a gallon. With regard to the hardness of° 
the Bath water, he considered that there was about half a pound 
of chalk to 200 gallons of water, and that the amount of lime in 
the water supplied daily is probably not less than from one to 
one-and-a-half tons. Proceeding then to describe the principle of 
Clark’s process for softening water and the difficulty in getting 
water companies to adopt improvements, and enumerating the 
several systems of purifying water before the public, he spoke 
