IV PREFACE. 



refuse of mines and manufactures can without any serious 

 interference with the industrial pursuits of the country, 

 within reasonable limits of expenditure, and even in many 

 cases with actual profit to the mine owner or manufac- 

 turer, be disposed of in other ways than by sending it 

 into the rivers, and thereby poisoning with it, the public, 

 the fish, the air, and the running waters of the kingdom. 



In an Appendix will be found a short statement of the 

 efforts, commencing in 1855, which have been made to 

 free our rivers from their dreadful state of pollution. 



Though those efforts have, it will be seen, been strenu- 

 ous and continuous, the Council regret to state that with 

 the single exception of the main drainage of the metropolis 

 nothing, absolutely nothing, has yet been accomplished in 

 the shape of effective practical legislation towards putting 

 down this gigantic and dangerous nuisance, consequently 

 that nuisance now overspreads the land in all directions, 

 it being a lamentable truth that (with the one exception 

 just noted of the Thames at London) there is scarcely a 

 river, a rivulet, or a brook, contiguous to a population, 

 or to a manufactory, or a mine, that is free from its per- 

 nicious influence. 



From the remarks addressed in August last by the 

 Home Secretary to the deputation which waited on the 

 E-ight Honorable gentleman upon this subject from the 

 Fisheries' Preservation Association, namely, that "he 

 " did not intend to continue the investigations, as he he- 

 " lieved that the experience gained by the inquiries into a 

 '' feio rivers woidd govern the ichole" the Council were 

 led confidently to hope that Government would be pre- 

 pared to introduce this Session a measure adequate to 

 meet the evil. 



In that expectation they have been grievously disap- 

 pointed, for on the 24th Feb. last, Mr. Hardy informed 



