360 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 
in England and Wales. This was compiled, and issued by the Local 
Government Board in 1914, as a first instalment of the comprehensive in- 
vestigation which had been recommended by various Royal Commissions 
and Committees. 
Subsequently, the Ministry of Health, the successors of the Local 
Government Board, appointed an Advisory Committee on Water who 
from time to time have issued various reports, 
In 1921 a Committee of the Board of Trade on Water Power Resources 
issued their Final Report, which contains the results of extensive investiga- 
tion as to the water power resources available for industrial purposes. The 
Committee recommended the establishment of a Water Commission 
(para. 32) whose primary function would be to compile a record of the 
water resources and water requirements of the country (para. 37). 
In 1927 the Institution of Water Engineers in general meeting passed 
a resolution that there was urgent need of an organisation which would 
ensure a continuous record of the flow and storage of surface and under- 
ground water. 
The passing of the Reservoirs (Safety Provisions) Act, 1930, and the 
establishment of Catchment Boards under the Land Drainage Act, 1930 
(see Memorandum D (2) appended), have drawn attention anew to the 
subject as a matter of immediate urgency, particularly as regards the 
gauging of streams and rivers to provide reliable data on which to base 
estimates of flood flows; as instances of this may be quoted the Annual 
Report of the Ministry of Health, 1930-31 (pp. 14-15), and the draft Report 
of the Committee of the Institution of Civil Engineers on floods in relation 
to reservoir practice. 
Finally, after the lapse of fifty-four years since the meeting at Dublin, the 
same demand has been repeated at the meeting of the British Association 
at York in 1932. The discussion, inaugurated by Capt. W. N. McClean, 
and supported by thirteen representative engineers and scientists, showed 
a unanimous opinion that the setting up of a national organisation for water 
survey was indispensable (The Times, September 7, 1932). 
II. PosiTIoN oF INLAND WATER SURVEY. 
4. Scope of survey.—Water conservancy has been defined by the President 
of the Mechanical Science Section of the British Association, at the Dublin 
Meeting in 1878,’ as ‘ the treatment and regulation of all the water received ° 
in these islands from its first arrival in the shape of rain and dew to its final 
disappearance in the ocean.’ This involves several branches of science :— 
Meteorology, as regards the precipitation from the clouds, the primary 
source of all water supply, of rain, snow and hail; the condensation from 
the atmosphere of water in the form of dew or hoar frost ; and as regards 
also evaporation by which a portion of the water is returned to the 
atmosphere. These, in their turn, are related to other meteorological 
factors, such as temperature and wind, and to geographical conditions, such 
as proximity to the sea or mountain masses ; 
Geology, as regards the absorption by the soil or rock of a portion of the 
water, its storage and flow in the underground strata and its return to the 
surface in the form of springs and seepage ; 
Topography, as regards the surface flow and storage of so much of the 
precipitated water as is neither evaporated nor absorbed. This includes 
7 Report, 1878, p. 679. 
