772 REPORT — 1903. 



The Soutliport Waterworks Company, by wliom water was originally brought 

 to Soutbport, was established under the authority of an Act of ParUament passed 

 in the year 1854. AVater was first obtained from a well sunk at Scarisbrick, 

 about five miles south-east of Southport, a source which was practically super- 

 seded by another well which was a few years later sunk at the Aughton pumping 

 station near Ormskirk. As the population to be supplied increased in numbers, 

 the Company subsequently sunk a third well, and constructed the still larger 

 Springfield pumping station near Town Green, about nine miles south-east of 

 Southport, and it is from the Aughton and Springfield wells, both sunk into the 

 Bunter Beds of the New Red Sandstone formation, that the present excellent 

 supply of water is derived. At each pumping station the water is raised by a pair 

 of beam rotative steam-engines into two covered service reservoirs situate on the 

 summit of Gorse Hill, near Ormskirk, at an elevation of 260 feet above ordnance 

 datum, or in other words, above the mean level of the sea. From this reservoir the 

 water is brought through two main pipes to Southport and Birkdale, which 

 places have from the commencement of the undertaking had the advantage of a 

 constant service. The late Mr. Thomas Hawksley acted as engineer to the 

 company from its formation until his death in 1893, and I subsequently acted in 

 that capacity until the transfer, under the powers of the Southport Water 

 (Transfer) Act, 1901, of the undertaking of the company to the Southport, Birk- 

 dale, and West Lancashire Water Board, consisting of representatives of the 

 Corporation of Southport, the Urban District Council of Birkdale, and the Eural 

 District Council of West Lancashire. 



The advances in recent years in chemical science, and the application of the 

 science of bacteriology to the examination of water, have led to the condemnation 

 of waters which a few years ago would have been deemed to be perfectly suitable 

 for a town supply. Whilst fully appreciating the advantages to be derived from 

 the most careful examination of water supplied for domestic, consumption, I cannot 

 but think that we are sometimes unnecessarily alarmed by the results obtained. 

 Taking a broad view of the subject, and looking to the healthy condition of towns 

 which have for many years been supplied with water from sources now regarded 

 with suspicion, I venture to think that the teachings of chemistry and bacteriology 

 are as yet but imperfectly understood, and that in the future it will be found that 

 some waters now considered of doubtful character are perfectly good and wholesome. 

 I am well aware that the expression of these views may call forth the indignation 

 of some of my friends amongst eminent chemists and bacteriologists to whose 

 opinions on such subjects I feel bound to pay deference. A Royal Commission 

 has recently recommended that a Government department be established and 

 endowed with enormous powers of interference with the action and discretion of 

 the bodies entrusted by Parliament with the responsibility of the administration of 

 water supplies, and it behoves those bodies to give careful consideration to that 

 recommendation, and to take such steps as may be necessary to check any attempt 

 to give effect to a proposal which may result in committing them to the carrying 

 out of unreasonable requirements, possibly involving needless expenditure, at the 

 bidding of a Department from whose dictum they may have no appeal. 



Although a matter only indirectly connected with water supply, I think it may 

 be of scientific interest to this Section to have brought to their notice the case of 

 the River Rede in Northumberland, which takes its rise in the Cheviots. At a 

 place called Catcleugh, about four miles below the source of the Rede, its waters 

 are diverted by the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company for the supply of 

 their district. The gathering-ground above the point of diversion is about 

 10,000 acres in extent, and the quantity of water taken is ascertained by means of 

 a gauge, and registered continuously by a recording instrument. An inspection of 

 the diagrams taken during periods in which there was no rainfall shows a daily 

 variation in the volume of water flowing down the river. For example, during a 

 period of eight days (June 9 to 16, 1899) without interruption by rain, the gradual 

 rise and fall of the river was almosr regular, d.iy by day, the maximum flow 

 occurring about 9 a.m., and the minimum about 9 p.m., the difference between the 

 two amounting to nearly 10 per cent, of the total quantity passing down the river 



