FROM THE CHALK OF HERTFORDSHIRE. 
161 
Indeed we ought to contend for a reduction, and a very considerable 
one, in the quantity of water taken from great depths in the 
Chalk. 
Should the drain upon our resources increase, we shall have 
fulfilled the predictions of Dr. John Evans already quoted: we 
shall have fertile and even irrigated meadows converted into arid 
wastes; watercress-beds, now of fabulous value, brought to the 
resemblance of newly-mended turnpike-roads; all existing wells, 
many of them already some hundreds of feet in depth, dried; and 
even the canals and navigable rivers rendered liable to sink and be 
lost in their beds. Should it, on the contrary, decrease, by the 
introduction of an outside supply, several of our now declining 
industries, such as watercress-growing, agriculture, and corn¬ 
grinding by water-power, would revive, and London, the largest 
and wealthiest city in the world, would no longer be in its present 
precarious condition, liable at any time to run short of water or to 
be decimated by an epidemic caused by its contamination, but would 
rival ancient Dome in the grandeur of its aqueducts and in the 
quantity and purity of the water supplied to its inhabitants. 
VOL. VI. — PART VI. 
II 
