214 DE RANGE : UNDERGROUND WATER-SUPPLY AND RIVER FLOODS. 
gallons of water, of a quality remarkably free from organic impurity, 
and the hardness of which does not in the least appear to affect the 
health of the population at present taking their supply from it, the 
death-rate of hard-water areas, other things being equal, comparing 
well with soft-water areas. 
Referring to the New Red Sandstone Rock, the Royal Com- 
mission into the Pollution of Rivers (6th Report Domestic Water 
Supply) states, it constitutes one of the most effective filtering modes 
known, and being at the same time a powerful destroyer of organic 
matter, the evidence of previous pollution in water drawn from deep 
wells in this rock may be safely ignored, ''for being a porous and 
ferruginous rock, it exerts a powerful oxidizing influence upon the 
dissolved organic matter which percolates through it. To such an 
extent is this oxidation carried, that in some cases, as in those of 
the deep well-waters supplying St. Helens and Tranmere, every trace 
of organic matter is converted into innocuous mineral compounds." 
The Commissioners further add, that though the quartz sand 
constituting the bulk of the New Red Sandstone is usually cemented 
together by carbonate or sulphate of lime, the hardness of the water 
is generally moderate, and of a nature that can be softened by lime, 
and they state that " unpolluted waters drawn from deep wells in the 
New Red Sandstone are almost invariably clear, sparkling, and palat- 
able, and are amongst the best and most wholesome waters for 
domestic supply in Great Britain. They contain, as a rule, but a 
moderate amount of saline impurity, and either none, or the merest 
trace of organic impurity. There is every reason to believe that a 
vast quantity of hitherto unutilized water of most excellent quality 
is to be had at a moderate expense from this very extensive geological 
formation." The truth of these statements has been amply proved 
by the labours of the Underground Water Committee during the 
past sixteen years. It is here needless to point out the millions of 
gallons of pure water that are daily pumped for the public supplies 
of Birmingham, Nottingham, Liverpool, Birkenhead, Southport, 
Coventry, and the Staffordshire Potteries. 
It is worthy of note, that faults in those portions of the New 
Red Sandstone, which are traversed by thick shales or rocks, are filled 
