226 FOKESTS, WOODS, AND TKEES 



to water. Disastrous floods of the Meavy river are also 

 rare. This watershed is an exceptional case, where, without 

 any forest cover, most of the rainfall is stored up, and little 

 of the water passes away as ' run-off.* 



Mr. J. Paton, Borough Engineer, in a discussion on pure 

 water supply held at a meeting of the Institute of Municipal 

 and County Engineers in 1911, comparing the gathering 

 ground of Plymouth, owned by the Corporation, with that 

 of Devonport, not similarly owned, says : " The water supply 

 of Plymouth is not filtered. The source of supply is above 

 suspicion, and there is no necessity to filter. The typhoid 

 rate for many years has been the lowest in the country. 

 Devonport has a gathering ground in another valley, with 

 a great deal of peat ; and the stream comes through one or 

 two very questionable districts, where it might be liable to 

 pollution from farm buildings, which the Plymouth supply 

 is free from. There they do not filter, as they find it very 

 expensive work, because the sand washing amounts to a 

 very large sum yearly. Sand filtering does not make them 

 any more immune from typhoid or an epidemic than if they 

 had left it alone." 



The Plymouth Waterworks are described by E. Sandeman, 

 in Proc. Inst. Civil Engineers, vol. 146, pp. 2-42, with map 

 (1901); and by F. Howarth, in Proc. Inc. Assoc. Municipal 

 and County Engineers, vol. 37, pp. 95-112, with map (1911), 

 and in Proc. Inst. Civil Engineers, vol. 194, p. 97, with 

 map (1914). 



Devonport obtains its water supply, which is now under 

 the control of the Plymouth Corporation, from the West 

 Dart river (1539 acres) and its tributaries, the Cowsic 

 (1524 acres) and Blackabrook (1653 acres) rivers. The 

 total catchment area comprises 4716 acres, of which 3297 

 acres are above 1500 feet, and 1419 acres lie between 

 1000 and 1500 feet. The area is rough moorland grazing, 

 without any plantations of trees, and is not owned by the 

 Corporation, who have, however, rights under Act of Parlia- 

 ment to abstract the water at definite points and divert it. 



