ON THE CHICCLATION OF UNDERGROUND WATEES. 265 



U^nder these circumstances your reporter bas reluctantly come to the 

 •opinion that it is unadvisable to continue to issue reports under the high 

 •authority of a committee of enquiry of the British Association which are 

 in reality the work of one person, for whose accuracy or otherwise the 

 Committee (and indirectly the Association) are made responsible ; 

 reports which, however cai-efuUy prepared from trustworthy information 

 from all parts of England and Wales, cannot possibly have the same 

 value as when each local detail received can be checked by a local repi'e- 

 sentative of the Committee, as was the case when your reporter first 

 ■divided the country into districts, in each of which your Committee had 

 an able representative. 



These results have been brought about by various causes : (1) Losses 

 •by death, including Mr. Binney, F.R.S., Professor Harkness, F.R.S., 

 Mr. Mylne, F.R.S., Mr. Molyneux, F.G.S. 



(2) Lcsses through illness, including Professor Prestwioh, F.R.S., 

 Dr. Crosskey, F.C.S., Mr. Plant, F.G.S., Mr. Pengelly, F.R.S. 



(3) Losses through change of residence and other causes, including 

 •Sir Frederick Bramwell, F.R.S., Mr. I. Roberts, F.R.S., Mr. Howell, 

 P.G.S., and other able observers. 



(4) Losses through members of the Committee contributing the in- 

 formation they have collected to the local societies, where they happen 

 to live, and where the matter is locally printed, and which, in the opinion 

 of your reporter, is the chief cause of the present dearth of information 

 .communicated by them to your reporter; for probably at no time were 

 our underground sources of water supply being more constantly tapped, 

 and at no time were boring contractors more willing to give thoroughly 

 ■intelligent accounts of the work carried out by them. 



Local publication has the advantage of giving the information quickly 

 to the local district, where it is of direct use for matters of detail, to 

 those on the spot, but is nearly useless for general reference and study, 

 •as local ti'ansactions of this class are constantly found to be absent from 

 public libraries, while their publication and concentration in the annual 

 volume of the British Association have been of great value for nearly 

 twenty years, and have largely given an incentive to the use of under- 

 ground water by pointing out its purity on the one hand and the absence 

 of law costs to obtain it on the other. Before finally closing the enquiry 

 your reporter suggests and your Committee approve that it would be 

 advisable to publish in a connected form the varied information given in 

 the past eighteen reports. In many of them the information is given in 

 -a more or less crude form, and the details of borings are given from year 

 to year as they progressed in depth, and details of one set of works 

 are carried on through several reports, and many of these are out of 

 print. 



It is therefore suggested that the Committee be reappointed with the 

 usual grant of 51. ; that the Secretary be requested to draw up a final 

 report embodying the whole of the facts obtained classified in counties ; 

 that it is advisable that the report in question should be issued and 

 sold as a separate publication. It would be with peculiar fitness that 

 your Committee should meet and present its final report, after its twenty 

 years' labours, at Nottingham, which rejoices in a magnificent supply of 

 the purest water derived from underground sources. 



Valuable information has been received by your reporter since the 

 last meeting from Dr. Parsons, of the Local Government Board ; Messrs. 



