238 
WATER SUPPLY OF LONDON. 
Vienna, is always preferred, and is best suited for domestic 
purposes, because of its being brighter to the eye and more 
agreeable to the taste. So satisfied, indeed, were the French 
authorities on this head, that they passed by the soft waters 
of the sandy plains near Paris, and went far away to the chalk 
hills of Champagne, where they found a water which is even 
harder than that supplied to London. One important con- 
sideration which strongly influenced them in their decision 
was the fact that more conscripts are rejected in the soft- 
water districts, on account of imperfect development and 
stunted growth, than in the hard ; and they conclude that 
calcareous matter in water is essential to the formation of 
tissues. In this country, also, it is remarkable that, wher- 
ever soft water is supplied to the people, the mortality is 
large, even when allowance is made for the birth-rate of the 
place. Glasgow, for example, as well as Preston, Dundee, 
Sheffield, Plymouth, Manchester, Bradford, &c., which are all 
supplied w ith w 7 ater of less than 4 degrees of hardness, have 
a mortality which ranges from 26 to 34 per 1000, while 
at Birmingham, Bristol, Sunderland, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
Wakefield, Dover, Norwich, Croydon, Worcester, Derby, and 
other places, w^here the waters are hard, the mortality is con- 
siderably less; in fact, it may be said that in towns supplied 
with w^ater of more than 10 degrees of hardness, the average 
mortality is about 22 per 1000, while in those supplied with 
softer water it is about 26 per 1000. It may well be, as the 
late Professor Johnston observed, that “ the bright sparkling 
hard waters w 7 hich gush out in frequent springs from our 
chalk and other limestone rocks are relished to drink, not 
merely because they are grateful to the eye, but because 
there is something exhilarating in the excess of carbonic acid 
they contain and give off; and because the lime they hold in 
solution removes acid matters from the stomach, and thus 
acts as a grateful medicine to the system. To abandon the 
use of such a w 7 ater, and to drink daily in its stead one 
entirely free from mineral matter, so far from improving the 
health, may injure it. The water of a country may determine 
the diet of its inhabitants. The soft water of the lakes of 
Scotland may have had much to do with the use of brown 
meal ; and but for the calcareous waters of Ireland the potato 
could not have become a national food. Looking at the plain 
teachings of all this, and considering the excellent quality of 
the water supplied to this metropolis, it would be folly, in 
my opinion, to change it for a soft water. On the other 
hand, it is quite possible to have an excess of calcareous and 
other saline matters, as is the case with the well waters of 
