34 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



found it to be very bad; it was in fact one of the worst samples 

 of water I have had occasion to examine. I accordingly, 

 though not without a little suspicion that some trick had 

 been tried, reported the water as being very bad and quite 

 unfit for use. On making inquiries some days afterwards as 

 to where such a specimen of water could have come from, I 

 was informed that a small leak had been discovered in the 

 soil pipe leading from the water-closet situated above the cis- 

 tern from which this sample was drawn, and that the various 

 matters wliich should have been removed by that pipe were 

 soaking through the flooring, and draining into the water in- 

 tended for the supply of the house immediately beneath. 

 Besides numerous other samples of water from the city, I 

 have been called upon to examine many waters from country 

 towns. Which waters, as they were generally bright and 

 sparkling, were believed and maintained by many people in 

 the habit of using them to be perfectly good and wholesome, 

 although disease was prevalent of such a nature as, together 

 with other circumstances, pointed most undoubtedly to impure 

 water supply. 



These waters contained in many cases the ordinary saline 

 ingredients, in the same proportions as are found in good 

 wholesome waters, and the so-called organic matter was some- 

 times high, but frequently, even in very bad waters, was ex- 

 ceedingly low. ^NTor is this at all to be wondered at, when we 

 remember what this organic matter is, or rather what it is 

 not, and how its amount is ascertained. 



I have quite recently finished a very extensive investiga- 

 tion into the quality of the water supplied to an important 

 town in Ayrshire, and I have found, in one case at least, that 

 the water, though really very bad, did not contain by any 

 means a large amount of " organic matter," while one or two 

 other specimens, much purer, contained far more. I am at 

 present engaged in a series of water analysis -for another town 

 in the west, and these samples, so far as the analyses have 

 been proceeded with, show similar results to those last named. 

 I have also had lately the water supply of a town in Kirk- 

 cudbrightshire to investigate, and some interesting results 

 were obtained in the course of that examination. The soil 



