232 



NATURE 



[August 17, 191 1 



To-day, the ratepayers of Birmingham are paying not only 

 water rates, but contributing out of the ordinary rates 

 64,000/. a yeai to meel the heavy annual charges in con- 

 nection with their Welsh scheme. Such a fact indicates 

 that for places far from the sources of supply, and with 

 wealth comparatively small to that of the great Midland 

 towns, the difficulty of securing any supply for their future 

 wants has become increasingly difficult, and may soon 

 become impossible ; and in this aspect the question of the 

 future water supply of our populations becomes a significant 

 political question, and because it is a matter of real im- 

 portance to the health and trade of our great town popula- 

 tions, it has received no attention at all at the busy hands 

 of our platform politicians. And yet, in my view, no 

 matter is more worthy of serious consideration and atten- 

 tion, and none is more urgently practical, than the ques- 

 tion of the future water supply of England. At one 

 time England was able with its rich fields to feed its own 

 populations, but, as trade prospered and populations 

 increased, it was found impossible to produce food-stuffs 

 sufficient for our people, and at present probably five-sixths 

 of the total food of the people is imported from abroad. 

 It is in this connection that current politics has taken in 

 hand the problem how we are to continue to obtain these 

 supplies from abroad : and while one school of politics 

 thinks that the future is assured to us so long as the price 

 of the loaf is not increased, another recognises the necessity 

 of earning sufficient here to enable us to buy our food in 

 other markets. But in relation to water supply we are in a 

 worse predicament. We must depend for that on the rainfall 

 of our own lands, and the improvident way in which out- 

 sources have been squandered in the past, the way in 

 which the long arm of wealth has been allowed to appro- 

 priate sources which may not naturally or geographically 

 belong to the community in question, the exhaustion of 

 local sources, and the waste of underground water which 

 takes place in connection with the mining operations of 

 England, has much complicated the great question, and has 

 made the future of Britain as to water supply both 

 precarious and serious. 



I have pointed out that the sources of supply are from 

 springs, streams, and wells which tap the underground 

 sources. There are in some quarters objections to rivers — 

 full-grown rivers — as a source of supply, largely due to the 

 fact that communities with insanitary rashness and short- 

 sightedness have thrown their refuse and filth into streams, 

 and made them the carriers of sewage. This matter was 

 fully discussed recently in Parliament when the Great 

 Yarmouth Water Company endeavoured to secure an 

 additional supply of water to the town beyond that which 

 it then drew from Ormesby Broad. We know, of course, 

 that the rainfall in the Eastern counties is much less than 

 in the west of England and Wales, and the company had 

 been advised by most competent engineers that the most 

 suitable source of supply was from the River Bure. The 

 population above the proposed intake was very small, only 

 one person to four acres, but still it could not be said that 

 no sewage did find its way into the river. But even this 

 insanitary indiscretion is condoned by nature, and rivers. 

 especially rapid and turbulent streams, have a way of 

 lnii ning off effete matter which is put into its liquid charge. 

 Whether this process of purification is absolutely effective 

 or not is still n moot point, and chemists and bacteriologists 

 air divided as to tin- safety in any rase of drinking water 

 which has hern subject to sewage pollution. The great 

 experiment of London has foiled to convince some of these 

 experts. 



London derives the bulk of its water from the Thames. 

 In the Thames watershed, above the Water Board's intake, 

 there are at lea I [,000,000 people and about Soo.ooo other 

 animals. The London water is supplied to nearly 7,000,000 

 people. This is obviously a large experiment, foi there are 

 about as many people in Water London as in the two 

 kingdoms of Norway and Sweden, about the same popula- 

 tion as there is in widespread Canada. The water mains 

 of London, according to the chairman of the Board, would 

 reach from London to New York and back ; and yet, not- 

 withstanding the supply of river water, the health of 

 London is exceptionally good. Indeed, there are some 

 persons who seem to think that river water is really more 

 wholesome than any other, and there i^ an interesting 

 statistic produced in proof of ibis assertion. The death- 

 NO. 2 l8l, VOL. 87] 



rate of Great Yarmouth, which, as I nave said, now takes 

 its water from the Bure, is 15 per 1000 ; Chester, which is 

 supplied from the Dee, 154 per 1000; and Greater London, 

 which drinks water from the Lea and the Thames, has a 

 death-rate of 13.3. But against this the death-rate of the 

 great towns which have pure hill waters for their supplies 

 are, in the case of Birmingham, 150; Manchester, 18-2; 

 and Liverpool, 102. If statistics were absolutely convinc- 

 ing, the case for river water as against hill water would 

 seem to be made out. But we must weigh statistics, and 

 not allow them merely to count. It might almost as 

 reasonably be suggested by anyone who was an opponent 

 of municipal trading that the results were due to the fact 

 that in the first three cases the water was supplied by 

 companies and in the last three by corporations. 



But, apart from any such questions, it is obvious that 

 Thames and Lea water as supplied to London is far from 

 being an unsatisfactory drinking water. But it is only fair 

 to remember that just as in economics there is no such 

 thing as " raw material." so in the case of our raw waters 

 the water as delivered is in most cases a manufactured 

 article. 



It was always understood that mere sedimentation carried 

 down a certain number of the germs which were contained 

 in water, but the experiments of Dr. Houston and others 

 show that millions of these germs in water artificially 

 infected with cholera vibrios are dead at the end of a week's 

 storage. 1 



It is in tbrse circumstances that the Metropolitan Water 

 Board has abandoned the idea of going to Wales for its 

 supplementary wafer supply, and proposes, by a Bill in the 

 present Parliament, to obtain power to construct a chain 

 of reservoirs for the purpose of decanting the raw river 

 water at Staines, and to spend 6,qoo,ooo/. on this grrat 

 scheme which is to supply the wants of Greater London for 

 the next thirty years — until, indeed, the population of the 

 metropolis may be twelve millions. 



But I was referring to the immense difficulty that any 

 comparatively small town has in our days of securing a 

 pure supply of hill water. So gnat is the difficulty that 

 as I have said, the Metropolitan Water Board has properly 

 hesitated to go to Wales, having spent 47,000,000/. in the 

 acquisition of the London water companies — the enormous 

 difficulties of a Welsh scheme seem to have been too great 

 even for the gigantic financial resources of London. It is 

 not, therefore, a matter for wonder that a town like Great 

 Yarmouth has to look to some near source of supply for 

 the further wants of the town, and, as I have said, they 

 were advised to have recourse to the Bure. There were tne 

 usual objections to river water, and in this rase it was 

 urged that the river which drains the Broads is in summer 

 the home of a large floating population in house-boats and 

 Other craft. It was, on the other hand, said that the 

 same objection might be made against the Thames, for the 

 Thames above the intakes has, in a momentary lapse into 

 poetic diction, been called " the water park of London." 

 But here again the health of London was in evidence, and 

 in the case of Yarmouth power was taken to prevent any 

 house-boat anchoring within a considerable distance of the 

 intake. 



There was another objection urged to the taking of 

 water from the Bure for town supply. When the wind was 

 in the north-west the waters of the German Ocean were 

 heaped up by the spade-work of the gusts, and when that 

 happened at the same time as a spring-tide the waters of 

 the Bure were held or barked-up. and it was said that, 

 owing to the mixing action which takes plare between sea 

 and river water, the waters of the river at the point of 

 intake would !»■ salt or brackish. It was argued that it 

 was ridiculous to supply a river water impregnated with 

 chloride of sodium to two .towns like Yarmouth and 

 Lowestoft. But here science came to the help of the water 

 company. The occasions when the north-west winds and 

 tlii- high spring-tide synchronised were of course very rare, 

 and it was proposed by the Bill that whenever such an 

 event took pi 're and when there were more than 20 g 

 of common salt to the gallon (that is. in 70,000 parts') in 

 1I1, Hm-e water, tin' company should cease to pump from 



1 Dr. Houston has Cm-, I, 



.1 

 protection against typhoid fever." 



week's storaee of raw rivej 

 a die "cultured " and " tin 

 , than a month's storage is an absolut* 



