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On Water Supplies suited to 
peasant, and live and work still harder than he does now, even 
if it were possible, is not desirable. There is much to admire 
in the thrift, the self-denial, and the industry of the Continental 
peasantry, and there may be something to learn from their better 
manipulation of their small products ; but to recommend to a 
race of hardworking Englishmen a life of grinding poverty is 
not likely to prove attractive to the individual or beneficial ta 
the community. 
II. — On Water Supplies suited to Farms and Villages. By 
William Anderson, M.Inst.C.E., Consulting Engineer ta 
the Royal Agricultural Society. 
In an excellent paper, " On the Composition and Properties 
of Drinking-water and Water used for General Purposes," * 
the late Dr. A. Voelcker pointed out that the supply of water 
in rural districts was often not only deficient in quantity, but 
was frequently largely impregnated with sewage and with yard 
and house drainage. 
He proceeded to classify the different kinds of water available, 
namely, rain-, river-, well-, and sea-water, and further subdivided 
these into soft and hard waters. 
Under the head of Soft Waters, he described the properties 
of river and lake waters, springs, and wells ; he pointed out 
the danger which arises from the action of some soft waters 
on the lead linings of cisterns, or on the inner surfaces of lead 
pipes, and gave simple directions for detecting this action and 
ascertaining whether water was actually contaminated with lead. 
He pointed out also that soft waters acted on iron pipes, and 
that galvanizing was not necessarily a protection. 
Under the head of Hard Waters, Dr. Voelcker explained that 
springs which rise in the oolite or chalk-formations, and all 
waters which flow over calcareous rocks, or pass through soils 
abounding in lime, are always more or less largely impregnated 
with carbonates and sulphates of lime and magnesia ; and when 
the quantity so dissolved exceeded 16 grains to the gallon, the 
water was said to be hard. Pure soft water was capable of 
dissolving only a feeble quantity of carbonate of lime, but most 
natural waters contain more or less carbonic acid gas in solu- 
tion, and then they become competent to dissolve as much as 
20 grains to the gallon. 
When hard water was boiled, or even merely heated, it frequently - 
* ' Journal,' E. A. S. E., 1875, vol. xi. p. 127, et seq. 
