HERTFORDSHIRE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
xlix 
of difficulty. No doubt certain water companies bad Parliamen¬ 
tary powers to remove water from tbe neighbourhood; but those 
powers ought to be examined, and there ought to be some limit to 
them. The question also arose whether the water companies had 
not exceeded the powers which the legislature intended them to 
have. He had noticed in his own neighbourhood that pumping from 
these wells had begun to dry the surface-wells, and if any one thought 
that could happen without being accompanied by weakness of the 
surrounding vegetation, he would be greatly mistaken. It was, 
therefore, really a question for agriculturists as well as for those in 
the towns. It was an economic as well as a sanitary question. So 
far as the County Council was concerned, he hoped the matter 
would be taken up very seriously. He should like to see the 
whole question treated by a special committee, and no doubt, in 
course of time, they would be obliged to enter into the matter far 
more seriously than they did last Monday. The appointment of 
a committee to examine the powers of the London water companies 
would have the effect of limiting or checking, if not removing 
altogether, anything that might be prejudicial to the interests of 
the county. But they wanted to go further. They wanted to 
know how far the injurious powers which were at present exercised 
could be stopped, and if they had even to pay compensation it 
would be better to face the difficulty at once, and pay that compen¬ 
sation, than to look forward to the future and find themselves 
without a supply of water, which was essential to their health and 
happiness and industries. He hoped they would not be satisfied 
with a mere empty inquiry. They were often told that the pollu¬ 
tion of rivers ought to be prevented; but he would submit that the 
Lea and most other rivers were navigable, and they could not get 
perfectly pure water from a navigable river. The London water 
companies were coming down upon the towns in the neighbourhood 
of, and above, Hertford, and telling them not to turn their sewage 
into the Lea; but why should those towns be put to such an 
enormous expense in order to provide fresh water for people in 
London who could well afford to get it elsewhere ? He begged to 
move “That the Hertfordshire Natural History Society earnestly 
desires the Herts County Council to investigate the whole question 
of the abstraction and removal of water from the Chalk basin of 
Hertfordshire by the London water companies.” 
Mr. A. P. McMullen, in seconding the motion, said he regretted 
that the County Council did not decide that the subject should be 
considered by a large Committee, or even by the whole Council, 
but if the whole question of the water-supply should be considered 
by the Finance and General Purposes Committee, he hoped Mr. 
Campbell would be on that Committee, and that there would be a 
good many practical and scientific men on it. They were face to 
face with a great danger, and they should take decided action. 
He thought the Metropolis was rich enough to get a water-supply 
from elsewhere, and so leave the people in this agricultural district 
to have that which was really intended by nature for them, and 
