114 Dr. H. Woodward — Recent and Fossil Hippopotami. 



Lord Justice Lindley remarks that the case " really involves the 

 question whether a person who has a well on his own land is at 

 liberty to poison the water which supplies that well and a large 

 district round about it. The defendant says he has such a right. 

 It is a startling proposition to say the least of it." He adds that 



" the right to foul water is not the same as the right to get it 



Prima facie no man has a right to use his own land in such a way 



as to be a nuisance to his neighbour If a man chooses to 



poison his own well, he must take care not to poison waters which 

 other persons have a right to use as much as himself. .... The 

 right of a man to get water from his well is to get the water as 

 nature supplies it." 



As a geologist, much interested in the question of water-supply 

 from underground sources, it was with a feeling of great relief that 

 I heard of the view of this case taken by the Court of Appeal, and 

 I read the full report of the judgments (from which the above 

 quotations have been made) with much pleasure. I am inclined to 

 think, indeed, that Mr. Justice Pearson, albeit he seems to hold 

 strongly to the opinion that this is a free country, may feel relieved 

 rather than grieved at the reversal of his decision. Had it been 

 upheld, there would clearly have been great need of a little law- 

 making. 



Although all sanitarians must be glad of the final decision in this 

 case, — for it will not be carried to the House of Lords, — yet it seems 

 unfortunate that the privilege of bringing up so important a matter 

 for settlement should have fallen to individuals instead of to corpora- 

 tions or to companies, on whom the expense would have more 

 fairly fallen. It may be but a poor consolation to both Plaintiff 

 and Defendant, that their names will become famous, like those of 

 Chasemore and Eichards, from the case of Ballard v. Tomlinson 

 being one that is likely to be quoted for many years, as giving a 

 most important decision in the law of water-supply from wells. 



Whilst it was decided, in the earlier case, that every owner has 

 the right to draw underground water to an unlimited extent, the 

 decision now noticed is to the effect that no owner has the right to 

 pollute a source of water-supply common to his own and other wells. 

 Whatever may be the fate of the former decision, it is to be hoped 

 that the latter one will never be altered. 



VI. —Recent and Fossil Hippopotami. 



By Henry Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., etc. 



(PLATE III.) 



IN September last, I drew the attention of the readers of the Geo- 

 logical Magazine (Decade III. Vol. II. pp. 412-425) to a singular 

 group of vegetable-feeding aquatic animals, the Sirenia, represented 

 at the present day by two genera, Manatus and Halicore, and by at 

 most six species, three or four of which are probably only varieties. 

 A peculiarity of this group of animals is that whereas the two living 

 genera are distributed in the subtropical regions East and West of 



