THE RIVER WANDLE. 31 



was and always had been supplied above the plaintiff's mill, in part 

 by the water produced by the rainfall on a district many thousand 

 acres in extent, comprising the town of Croydon and its vicinity. 



" The water of the rainfall sinks into the ground to various depths, 

 and then flows and percolates through the strata to the River Wandle, 

 part rising to the surface and part finding its way underground in 

 courses which continually vary. The defendant, who represented the 

 Local Board of Health of Croydon for the purposes of supplying 

 the town of Croydon with .water and for other sanitary purposes, sank 

 a well in their own land in the town of Croydon and about a quarter 

 of a mile from the River Wandle, and pumped up large quantities 

 of water from their well for the supply of the town of Croydon, and 

 thereby diverted and abstracted underground water, but underground 

 water only, that otherwise would have flowed and found its way into 

 the River Wandle, and so to the plaintiff's mill, and thereby sensibly 

 hindered the working of the plaintiff's mill. 



" The question was, could the plaintiff maintain an action for such 

 diversion and abstraction .' The House of Lords, after 'consulting the 

 judges, decided not, and held that no right could be acquired to 

 subterranean water flowing or percolating in indefinite channels, and 

 that the rules of law applicable to surface waters do not apply to 

 subterranean streams. This case has been regarded as the leading 

 authority on questions of subterranean waters, and has been followed 

 ever since. The reasons for the decision of the House of Lords are well 

 and ably discussed in Mr. Gale's work on Easements (Eighth Edition)." 



The practical effect of this judgment is to allow any person well 

 versed in the geological features of a country to rob a river entirely 

 of its supply of spring water, and there does not appear to me that 

 there would be any difficulty in depriving the Wandle of its water, 

 and making it flow down the valley of the Darenth, as this would be 

 a mere question of money and engineering skill. 



The Wandle has also been the subject of other important litiga^ 

 tion, for the Board of Health of Croydon carried all the sewage 6f the 

 town into the river which passed through Beddington Park to my garden. 



