226 Reviews — H. B. Woodtcard — Geology of Water Supply. 



I. — The Geology of Water Supply. By Horace B. Woodward, 

 F.R.S., F.G.S. 8vo; pp. xii, 340. London: Edward Arnold, 

 1910. Price 7s. Qd. net. 



A HANDY book on Water and Water Supply has long been needed 

 by the public; now, thanks to Dr. J. E. Marr, E.R.S., the 

 editor of Mr. Arnold's Geological Series, the task has been undertaken 

 by Mr. Horace B. Woodward, whose forty years connexion with the 

 Geological Survey of England and Wales has given him long practical 

 acquaintance with the principal water-bearing strata of our Island, 

 while his advice has been frequently requisitioned by Government 

 Commissions, by Water Companies, as well as by private persons, 

 when seeking water, whether for camps, for cities, or for country 

 residences. 



It is not only essential for towns, for brewers, and many other 

 manufacturers to obtain an abundant supply of water, but it must, 

 in addition, be of good quality. There are cases upon record of 

 deep borings having been undertaken by towns in order to obtain 

 a large, constant, and pure supply of water, which have resulted 

 satisfactorily both as regards quantity and constancy, but alas ! the 

 water proved too saline for drinking, and the cry of Coleridge's 

 "Ancient Mariner" went up from that city of 

 " Water, water everywhere, 

 Nor any drop to drink ' ' ! 



But that is only one of the evils to be guarded against by the 

 engineer and chemist as well as the geologist in search of water. 

 There is the fruitful and ever-present anxiety arising from the 

 introduction of organic pollutions to which the water in every 

 inhabited area is liable. Most suspicious or doubtful water which 

 exhibits any proportion of such contamination has probably been 

 derived from a shallow well or a river ; but even deep wells or 

 spring water are liable to contain at times some noxious germs 

 through drainage percolation in the adjacent soil. 



In rural districts (now happily rarely), the well for drinking- 

 water and the cess-pit are sometimes to be found in dangerous 

 proximity, and the very source of domestic water supply may thus 

 become contaminated. 



Going back to the original "sources of water supply, these depend 

 almost wholly on rainfall, and the consequent springs, rivers, and 

 lakes to which it gives birth, also on the geological structure which 

 enables certain rocks to store large supplies of the rain that has 

 percolated through the soil. As these factors are subject to extreme 

 variation, so the problem of obtaining wholesome and adequate 

 supplies may be either simple or fraught with great difficulty and 

 uncertainty" (p. 2). 



" Freshwater is required in all regions, from the tropics to the 

 poles, and at different elevations, so that recourse must be had in 

 some situations to the melting of snow or glacial ice, to natural 

 water-holes, in arid regions, or to the sinking of wells along a dry 

 river course, and to the distillation of sea-water, mostly on the 



