14 BURTON WATERS—DRINKING AND BREWING. 
tubes to be preferred, especially if these latter pass through 
an impervious bed, cutting out the contaminated surface 
water. 
The present Lichfield supply, or tap water, is a hard 
spring water, usually obtained from tubes in the gravel 
beds at Fradley, and it is remarkably free from organic 
contamination. The old supply was a much softer water, 
being a mixture of surface and spring water from Cannock 
Chase; this was usually slightly contaminated by organic 
matter, but only in times of drought did the amount 
assume proportions that rendered the supply suspicious as a 
drinking water. 
I may here say that the presence of certaim living organ- 
isms in water—unless in great numbers—does not seriously 
interfere with its value as drinking water. I refer more 
especially to the minute and beautifully marked Diatoms 
and the Desmids, specimens of which are found in all rivers, 
streams, lakes, and open reservoirs, as they may certainly 
be taken into the human system, even in some quantity 
without any injurious effect. 
Also the presence of suspended matter in small amount 
need not necessavily make a water unfit for drinking purposes. 
I say, ‘need not necessarily do so,’ for if that suspended 
matter contains the microbes of infectious diseases, or if it 
contains other poisonous substances, it would, of course, 
make the water unfit for use, in any case we naturally 
prefer a bright clear water to a cloudy or turbid one, and 
any company supplying drinking-water may reasonably be 
asked to filter off such impurities. 
2—BURTON BREWING WATERS. 
I cannot do better in the first place, when speaking of 
this part of my subject, than quote one or two extracts 
from Molyneux’s ‘‘ Waters of Burton-on-Trent.” In speaking 
of the valley gravels of Burton, he says, “Although in no 
instance rising more than 8 feet above the present water 
