I?2 



NA TURE 



[December 12, 1907 



gallons in 1941, and 570,000,000 gallons in i960. 

 Of the various sources of supply, that from the 

 Thames alone is capable of considerable expansion, 

 and in i960 it is estimated that 450,000,000 gallons 

 per day may be taken from that river. In order 

 to admit of this expansion, immense storage reser- 

 voirs would require to be constructed ; the amount 

 of storage necessary in 1916 would be 6,436,000,000 

 gallons, in 1941 as much as 27,276,000,000 gallons, 

 and in i960 the prodigious amount of 54,059,000,000 

 gallons, the necessary storage increasing at a greater 

 rate than the supply. The chief engineer believes 

 that 450,000,000 gallons is the limit which could 

 be taken economically from the Thames in any condi- 

 tions. 



The works at present in existence or authorised will 

 suffice for the supply of London until 1917, and to 

 provide the additional works required at that date 

 'it will be necessary to approach Parliament for new 

 powers in 1910. The new scheme which has been 

 definitely adopted as the policy of the board is to 

 develop the supply from the Thames valley, and to 

 trust to that as sufficient for the next fifty years, 

 but at the same time to acquire powers for securing 

 a supplemental source of supply to be utilised when 

 the existing sources can no longer be developed 

 economically. In the report as issued reference is 

 merely made to " a distant source " being neces- 

 sary fifty years hence, but in the debate the source 

 was referred to plainly as Wales. It is remembered 

 that before the creation of the Metropolitan Water 

 Board the London County Council as water authority 

 developed a scheme for supplying London w-ith water 

 from Wales in competition with the companies, and 

 it was proposed in the debate on the report before the 

 Water Board to proceed forthwith with a Welsh 

 scheme, but a very large majority agreed to endorse 

 the recommendations of the report in this particular. 

 The three important resolutions as amended in 

 another particular and adopted are as follows : — 



" (a) That in the opinion of the Board it is desirable 

 to seek Parliamentary powers enabling them to provide 

 additional supplies from the Thames for as long a period 

 as is economically practicable. 



"(b) That as the increase in population will eventually 

 render resort to some other source than the Thames water- 

 shed imperative, the Board view with great alarm the 

 increasing tendency of authorities throughout the kingdom 

 to appropriate water-supplying areas for their particular 

 use, and in these circumstances desire to urge upon 

 Parliament the necessity for regulating the appropriation 

 of water-supplying areas, so that the needs of the metro- 

 polis as well as of other populous places may receive due 

 consideration. 



" That a copy of the foregoing resolution be sent to the 

 President of the Local Government Board, and that he be 

 asked to receive a deputation from the Board on the 

 subject ; and further, that in the event of such_ request 

 being granted, the Works and Stores Committee be 

 authorised to make all necessary arrangements with regard 

 to the deputation. 



" (c) That it be an instruction to the Works and Stores 

 Committee to prepare and submit to the Board as early 

 as practicable a scheme to give effect to the foregoing 

 resolutions." 



The Metropolitan Water Board is the largest and 

 most important water authority in the United King- 

 dom, being responsible for the supply to one-sixth 

 of the population of the British Isles. The distribu- 

 tion of rainfall, on which water supply depends imme- 

 diately or ultimately, is, speaking broadly, the inverse 

 (if the distribution of population. Taking the part of 

 England and Wales south of the Trent, it may be 

 said that most people live in the Thames valley, 

 while most rain falls in Wales. Much rain falls also 

 •on Dartmoor, Exmoor, and in tlie Lake District, 



NO. 1989, VOL. ']^'\ 



all of them distant and unpeopled places on which 

 the eyes of nearer populations have been turned for 

 some time. It is the custom of Governments to 

 assume control of the distribution of natural treasure 

 and to regulate the pegging-out of claims for hewing 

 out gold or diamonds, and the Water Board now pro- 

 poses to asli for the extension of this ])rinciple to the 

 drawing of water for great communities. The sug- 

 gestion is not new, but it will none the less meet 

 with keen opposition, for the large towns with great 

 and distant water supplies are usually permitted and 

 sometimes compelled by Parliament to sell surplus 

 water to the communities along the track of their 

 aqueducts, and hence municipal foresight may involve 

 taking thought also for possible interference wdth 

 spheres of interest. 



It is interesting to compare the proposed appeal 

 to Government to keep a place in the struggle for 

 water-yielding grounds for the supply of London half 

 a century hence with the arguments employed by 

 Mr. Urquhart A. Forbes in a paper on " The Water 

 Supply of the United Kingdom " in the October 

 number of the Quarterly Review. Mr. Forbes urges 

 the appointment of a central water board for the 

 country with subordinate watershed boards in order 

 to check the depredations of the great towns on the 

 upper reaches of rivers, and to ensure the mainten- 

 ance of the lower streams in a condition fit for navi- 

 gation and fishing. It must not be forgotten that 

 rivers not only water the land, but drain it as well, 

 and to the mind detached from all municipal or 

 commercial schemes it appears self-evident that the 

 same channel should not be required to act both as 

 an aqueduct and as a sewer. On the other hand, it 

 is an aclinowledged fact that the insertion of a 

 properly proportioned artificial lake in the upper 

 waters of a river benefits that river by checking 

 floods in wet weather and maintaining a good flow 

 in dry weather, while it enables a permanent and 

 pure supply to be drawn for the uses of a distant 

 population. To the scientific mind the surprising 

 thing is that steps have not been taken long ago 

 to gauge the flow of all the rivers in the country and 

 to establish rain gauges in remote and uninhabited 

 places where the treasure of the heavens descends in 

 fullest amount. Not until this has been done can 

 the alliterative dictum of Mr. John Burns — " Rain 

 to the rivers, sewage to the sea " — become an effective 

 mandate. 



NOTES. 



The Nobel prizes, of the value of nearly 7700Z. each, 

 were presented at the .\cademy of Sciences at Stockholm 

 on Tuesday. In science, the prizes were awarded as 

 follows : — physics, Prof. Michelson, University of Chicago ; 

 chemistry. Prof. Buchner, University of Berlin ; medicine. 

 Dr. Laveran, Pasteur Institute, Paris. 



The Glasgow Corporation has decided to confer the 

 freedom of the city on Lord Lister. 



.\ TELEGRAM from Largs states that Lord Kelvin has not 

 been well for more than a fortnight, and has been confined 

 to his bed. His condition on Tuesday night had improved. 



Mr. J. D. Rockefeller has just given an additional 

 sum of more than 520,000/. to the Rockefeller Institute 

 for Medical Research in New York, to be held as an 

 endowment the income of which is to be used at the 

 discretion of the management. 



The death is reported, in his seventy-ninth year, of Dr. 

 Asaph Hall, professor of astronomy at Harvard since 1895. 

 Prof. Hall received an elementary-school education in his 



