INLAND WATER SURVEY 391 
Canals and waterways and locked rivers.—Lock-keepers are naturally 
the observers, and the canal engineer’s office is obviously the place for 
checking and filing of the observational. records. Final tables of flow 
should be prepared in somewhat similar manner to those of the rivers. 
If the routine were once established, the somewhat complicated details 
would soon be collected into suitable form. Without more investigation 
into canal work I am not prepared to suggest any special form of record. 
It is, however, important to realise that the lock of a canal or river is an 
accurate measurement tank which will give valuable information of the 
actual flow through sluices as efficiently as the tank below the Assuan Dam. 
The other record work which falls within the scope of canal measurements 
is the keeping of neighbouring water level records and sometimes flows 
on the rivers and streams used or affected by canal water supplies. 
Electrical Power Stations and other abstractors of river water.—At 
present these stations appear to be only concerned with low flows, whereas 
they will be, in the future, dependent for their supply on natural or artificial 
storage somewhere on the river system. It is rather insufficient that they 
should only make a few low flow measurements of their own: they should 
be responsible for the water level records at all stages of flow, and their 
records should go to the Catchment Boards. The measurements of river 
flow should be supplied to them by the river authority, and their own 
flow measurements should be only those of the water abstracted from 
the river. 
Other users of water would likewise be responsible for maintaining 
continuous water level records under the direction of the Catchment 
Boards. The Catchment Boards should supply them with necessary 
flow values, and they should supply the Catchment Boards with continuous 
water level records and with the figures of their own supply or diversion 
of water. 
Catchment, Conservancy and River Boards —There might be a Committee 
of a few of these catchment board engineers to outline briefly how their 
measurements and records may be developed on lines which will make 
their offices the central record office for the water survey and records of 
their respective river basins. If these boards do not make the whole river 
survey a matter of first importance, there is the real danger that their 
measurements and records, like those of other bodies, will be developed 
only for the solution of their own urgent problems of drainage and pollution. 
SuB-MeEmoranpum D (1). 
WATER SUPPLY AUTHORITIES. 
NOTES ON THE PRESENT POSITION WITH REGARD TO PUBLIC 
WATER SUPPLIES IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 
By F. O. STanrorp. 
PREFACE. 
The provision of a supply of pure and wholesome water for public 
purposes has by its very nature a prior claim on the water resources of 
the country, and the following notes are intended to indicate, though very 
roughly, the manner and extent to which this claim is exercised. 
The Ministry of Health, as the predominant authority (under Parliament) 
in this respect, has compiled a large amount of data and statistics on the 
