72 The Filtration Works for the Improvement of the 



heard it get such a name before. There is one thing certain; 

 the Commissioners will lose no time in the promotion of a new 

 Bill for the future supply of as pure and wholesome a water as 

 they possibly can get. 



Mr. J. Brown — I have listened with interest to Mr. Macas- 

 sey's very lucid description of the new filters, and I look forward 

 with pleasure to having pure water to drink. I doubt if one 

 would be correct in calling what we have at present truly water 

 at all. Mr. Macassey, however tells us, on eminent authority, 

 that it is very good water ; Dr. Letts says it is very bad ; while 

 Mr. M'Cammond remarked that he was not a judge of water. 

 Now, I drew attention some time ago in one of the local papers 

 to the fact that in various English towns the authorities pub- 

 lished periodical reports of the condition of the water supply, 

 and pointed out that this should be done in Belfast also. The 

 discrepancies and deficiencies in the opinions quoted above 

 would then be accounted for, and we should all know what we 

 were drinking. There seems no logical reason why it should not 

 be done. The Commissioners do not, I suppose, want to con- 

 ceal anything, and the citizens have certainly a right to know 

 what they are paying for. Exeter is one of the towns publishing 

 such reports, and I have here copies of some of these. The 

 water is very much better than that of Belfast. It is filtered in 

 quite the same way as ours will shortly be. With regard to the 

 Mourne water, as I have already ])ointed out elsewhere, it is 

 very pure when the weather is fine. Under other conditions it 

 is very dark and peaty, and would require filtration. 



Mr. J. H. Greenhill — From what Mr. Macassey has said, it 

 will be some time before we can have the purely filtered water, 

 and it strikes me as being very important that we should carry 

 out domestic filtration to the fullest extent. A great many 

 people employ filters, but I am afraid they allow them to become 

 useless, even poisonous, from neglect. In the selection of a 

 filter it is absolutely necessary that it should be easily cleansed, 

 especially the filtering medium, and the oxidising material 

 should be renewable. 



