OPENING OF DISCUSSION 
IN SEcTION C (GEOLOGY) 
ON 
UNDERGROUND WATER SUPPLY 
By PROF. W. S. BOULTON. 
(Ordered by the General Committee to be printed in extenso.) 
THE serious drought which has afflicted this country, in common with many 
others abroad, for more than a year, causing intense anxiety in many 
quarters as to the sufficiency and proper distribution of our water supplies, 
may have helped to provoke the present discussion. But, apart from our 
immediate water shortage in many parts of the country, some of us have 
long felt that this question of underground water, falling as it does primarily 
within the domain of the geologist, should interest the Geological Section of 
the British Association. 
The Committee on Inland Water Survey, inaugurated at the York Meeting 
two years ago, had for its main object the organisation of a water survey of 
the country, and, although its terms of reference include underground water, 
I gather from the constitution of the Committee, and from its report issued 
at the Leicester Meeting last year, that its work will be confined for the most 
part to surface water, thus coming within the scope of the engineer and the 
geographer, and to a less extent the geologist. We learn, indeed, from this 
report that the Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers ‘ will be 
prepared, if they are so requested by the British Association, to appoint a 
Committee to investigate the feasibility of carrying out the objects outlined 
in the Report.’ 
On July 19 last, a deputation from the British Association and the Institu- 
tion of Civil Engineers met the Minister of Health, and invited the Govern- 
ment to give favourable consideration to the institution of a complete and 
systematic survey of the water resources of the country. We shall await 
with interest the Government decision. 
It would appear likely, however, that such a water survey, if carried out 
under the auspices of the Ministry of Health or by the Institution of Civil 
Engineers, will be primarily concerned with surface water, and in any case 
is likely to leave a wide unexplored field for observation, record and study 
which can only be adequately undertaken by geologists. 
Underground water can be divided for our present purposes into two 
categories : first, meteoric water, which is supplied directly from the rainfall, 
and percolates from the surface through the rocks ; and second, what has 
been termed plutonic, magmatic or juvenile water, normally deep-seated and 
more or less hot, with a notable absence of chlorine, which characterises 
meteoric water, but with other characteristic constituents like boric acid. 
With plutonic water we may class the so-called connate water, originally 
stored in sedimentary rocks. I propose to confine this discussion to 
meteoric water. 
