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[April 7, 1870 
THE ABUSE OF WATER 
HOSE who have travelled in remote districts, even 
at home, cannot fail to have experienced at some 
time or other a keen sense of the fact that water is one of 
the most peremptory necessities of life, one which Nature 
generally supplies so freely and bountifully that habitual 
familiarity with the gift sometimes tends to lessen its ap- 
preciation. Moreover, the utility of water in variozs ways 
as a source of power, a means of communication, or a 
material of manufacturing industry, has led to its appli- 
cation for a multitude of purposes besides the daily wants 
of life, and in many cases, unfortunately, this has been 
done in a way that has been attended with very serious 
consequences as regards the condition of natural sources 
of water supply. 
To take, for instance, the case of our largest river 
whence the inhabitants of London chiefly derive their 
‘supply of water. It became apparent some 20 years ago 
that the condition of the water, resulting from a variety 
of polluting influences, was so bad, that the river 
within the boundary of the metropolis was no longer 
a fit source of water-supply for domestic use. The 
commissioners appointed at that time to inquire into 
and report on the subject, stated as the result of their 
inquiry that they doubted whether the existence of 
organic contamination from town drainage was then per- 
ceptible in the water of the Thames above the reach of 
the tidal flow, or that it amounted to a sensible evil, 
although, as the main drain of a large and populous dis- 
trict, the Thames was at all seasons polluted by surface 
drainage, and by the sewage of several considerable 
towns, there being then a population of more than three- 
quarters of a million on the banks of the river above 
Kingston. They supported this conclusion by referring to 
the probability that the large dilution of the sewage with 
the well-aérated water of the river was attended with such 
an efiect as to cause the disappearance of impurities and 
their conversion into harmless products of decomposition. 
But, at the same time, they added that, since the con- 
tamination of the water by sewage could not fail to become 
considerable and offensive with the increase of popula- 
tion and the more thorough and general drainage of 
towns, it appeared to them only a question of time when 
the sense of this violation of the purity of the river should 
decide the public mind to the entire abandonment of the 
Thames as a source of water supply, unless, indeed, 
artificial means of purification should, in the meantime, 
be devised and applied. 
Since the date of this report the application of the 
system of water-carriage removal of excrementitious 
material from dwellings has been extended in the towns 
situated in the upper valley of the Thames, and conse- 
quently the discharge of such contaminating material into 
the river, as sewage, has become more direct and more 
abundant. Hence we find that on several subsequent 
occasions the foregoing view of this subject has been 
strongly urged by other authorities, with the addition of 
warnings that the evil, merely apprehended before, had 
actually come into existence. Thus in 1858 the first 
report of the Royal Commissioners on the sewage of towns 
represented the increased pollution of rivers as an evil of 
national importance urgently demanding remedial mea- 
sures, notwithstanding the natural agencies at work to 
effect the purification of flowing water. Moreover, the 
influence of water, thus polluted, as a source of disease, 
was earnestly dwelt upon. Their second report, in 1861, 
stated that the still increasing pollution of rivers had be- 
come so great and general that, besides being in some 
instances a nuisance and rendering the water utterly 
unfit for drinking, it was a general source of serious 
danger of infection for persons consuming even water 
that presented no appreciable sign of such pollution. 
Again, in 1866 and 1867 the reports of the Rivers Com- 
mission, dealing chiefly with the Thames basin above 
Hampton and that of the Lea, illustrated very forcibly the 
abominable effects of the discharge of sewage into these 
rivers, which are the chief source of metropolitan water 
supply. Referring to the spontaneous purification of 
flowing water by atmospheric oxidation—alJleged by some 
to be adequate to render polluted water free from any 
objectionable character—these reports state that, though 
the process tends to purification, it is no sufficient guarantee 
for the water being purged of injurious sewage taint ;— 
that, though the water supplied to London usually con- 
tains but a very limited amount of organic impurity, even 
that fact is, under existing circumstances, no satisfactory 
ground of assurance that the metropolitan supply of water 
is wholesome, or that the London drinker of water may 
not be drinking with it some remnant of the filth of other 
towns. 
The report just issued by the Rivers Pollution Com- 
mission reveals the existence of a still more frightful state 
of rivers in the manufacturing district of Lancashire, 
where the pollution of the water has reached such an 
extent that, as compared with the Thames at London 
Bridge, the rivers are in several instances mere open sewers. 
That such should be the case is not indeed surprising, 
when it is considered that in this locality there is an 
enormous demand for water for all kinds of industrial 
purposes; that the water generally becomes fouled by 
such use, and, moreover, that the popuiation has, in some 
parts, increased fourfold during the last seventy years. 
This latter circumstance has a much greater influence as a 
cause of pollution than has been supposed; but the effect 
of the use of water for manufacturing purposes alone has 
been, in the words of the Commissioners’ Report, “to absorb 
the whole of the stream, which is the outlet of the drainage 
of the country, and to apply it to manufacturing purposes 
solely, so as to throw out of sight altogether the right of the 
dweller on the bank of a stream to the use of the water 
of that stream, and, gradually, to assume that the extent 
of the evil, or the magnitude of the profits which arise 
from the aéwse of water in various processes of manu- 
facture, is sufficient justification of the course followed 
up to the present time.” 
The Lancashire rivers present a peculiar form of pollu- 
tion, resulting from the discharge of manufacturing refuse 
into them. Among the materials thus introduced into river 
water is arsenic, which is largely used in the calico-printing 
| works. The foul water running from one company’s works 
was found to contain as much as ‘042 1b. of arsenous acid 
in 100,000 lb, Several of the rivers in the Mersey and 
Ribble basins are thus becoming contaminated with 
arsenic; and though it appears that the arsenic is, in 
some respects, gradually got rid of and deposited in the 
mud, this probably is not always the case. Arsenic is also 
contributed by aniline colour works and woollen manufac- 
tories. In the latter case, its source is yltimately the 
iron pyrites now so largely used for making sulphuric acid. 
Taking the quantity of pyrites imported for this purpose 
to be 400,000 tons a year, and the amount of arsenic it 
contains at a moderate average, we thus import 1,600 tons 
of arsenic, of which, there is reason to believe, a large 
proportion ultimately finds its way into our rivers and 
streams. In its course there it is sometimes met with in 
soap, as well as washing soda, and in the soda-ash used 
for making them. In this way it is met with in London 
sewage at Barking to the extent of ‘004 parts in 100,000. 
The Commissioners do not take an alarmist view of 
this wide distribution of arsenic, for since they find it in 
appreciable quantity in the rain falling in London, they 
consider it would also be met with in the case of most 
large towns as derived from coal smoke ; but they suggest 
that care should be exercised in alkali works to prevent its 
unnecessary introduction into manufactured products, and 
they consider that might be easily done. 
As regards that pollution of rivers which is due to 
