15 SEPTEMBER 1849, Page 12

WATER.

LosnoN pines and sickens for want of water ! The paragon of - modern cities, the unrivalled metropolis of-the mightiest nation of the earth, is grovelling like a Cahouek camp in squalor, stench, and univhplesonieness, for want of pne of the first necessaries of life. The fact illustrates a curious tendency in civilization to run in,aoma respects a cyclical course. Allured by certain na- turaI:ndvantag,es of site, andshiefly by the abundance of water for domestic use and for the pnrposes,of manufacture and transit, men congregate together and lay the foundations of great cities. In the lapse of ages, as their numbers and their activity increase, theirown animal exuvim,and the refuse matter of the arts which they' exercise, become warm of grieve/is discomfort, vitiating the soil, the water, and the air. A wise economy will then seek to arrest this deteriorating proans, and to recover and preserve for the dwellers in the city the primitive bounties of nature. To be in perfect harmony with the organic laws of the universe, which can never be violated with impunity, is the ideal goal of advaminig °ionization. , - .

London town has outgrown the original resources of the spot, and is now dangerously and disgracefully ill-watered. The supply is -both inadequate in quantity and bad in quality ; the badness being of various dee.arees from the insidiously unwhole- .some:. to the loathsome andffitel„—in other words, from slow to rapid poisoning. In order to mit this matter in the clearest light, let us briefly consult the natural history of our subject.

Water in its simplest state is a combination of oxygen and hydrogen in definite proportiens. When freshly obtained by the contrivances of the chemist, it is insipid and unfit for alimentary purposes ; but on exposure to the air, it quickly imbibes an ad- ditional portion of oxygen, which it holds in solution, thereby acquiring a more grateful flavour, and character in the highest degree congenial to the animal economy. In this second state, then, it constitutes the natural standard of pure potable water; every -decline from which is indicated by a proportionate increase in specific gravity, evidencing the presence of extraneous matter. Now as water possesses great solvent powers, it readily becomes impregnated with foreign ingredients. The pure element, dis- tilled in the great laboratory of nature, and stored up in the clonds and vapours of the higher regions of the air, descending thence in the form of rain, carries down with it the gases and the finer narticles of solid bodies suspended in the atmosphere. The fallen rain, flowing along the surface of the earth and sinking through its interstices, parts with some of these adventitious matters, to enrich the soil and speed the work of vegetation ; in exchange for them it again takes up others,' such as animal and vegetahle remains, and earthy, alkaline, and metallic salts. Thus freighted, and often depositing and renewing its freight, it pur- sues its subterraneous course, until it again finds vent at some point where the stratum over which it trickles crops out at the earth's surface. The lower that stratum, the purer in general is the water issuing from the spring. The water of Artesian wells, being derived from a great depth below the surface, is preeminent for_purity and softness.

The hardness of water is owing to the presence of earthy and alkaline salts. A great portion of the water used in London la- bours under this grave defect. The consequences are, great waste and enhanced cost in washing and culinary processes, and a long catalogue of bodily sufferings entailed on the drinkers of the im- pure beverege. To illustrate by contrast the pernicious effects of repeated calcareous drenches, we need only point to the restore- tivejetielities of the Malvern waters. Long before Priessnitz and hydrepathy were heard of, those celebrated springs were resorted to for their curative powers, especially in diseases of the digestive organs, the kidneys, .Stc., such as the hard water of London tends to produce. Now the , Malvern Waters are not of the mineral class ; they cure, not by Means ofitny medicinal ingredients con- tained in them, but simply by virtue of their own exceeding purity. Their specific gravity is only 1.002, showing them to be all but devoid of foreign admixture. There lies beneath London, quite accessible and ready to overflow for our use, an inexhaust- ible lake of water as pure as that of Malvern ; but we are for- bidden to touch it. The sick Londoner, craving for Nature's pure cordial draught, must gulp down his lime-drugged potion, in re- verence for the monopoly of the Water Companies.

But there are worse impurities in our daily drink than those

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.114 1111141aliti yet. Amigos; Me 90mirgaprtg: the :Companies i ,eolleetive yd44.001Q4, , per au#uw forit bet. primal% e of smelting. Out b ho d, eweetmaiug our persons, and warihing..dosen our Upealecoeisk„ a more ee less eenceatrated :solution of .native guano.° Excepts:1 big the .paeta,fof Loudon *applied by metropolis derives. its -supply of water - chreffly; from-the Thanies,- just as in the reign of Henry the Third, - 1ien-,she limpid. rivei,_ still pursued "its silver winding way," where now we see:a great , fetid ditch, seething with the putreseent.eordes alum:than two millions of human beings, and .inoeseantly churned hy the pado files of steamers-rushing about inevery direction-to make. the in- fusion more slab and homogeneous. The tyranny of -the Water Companies entails, on this meteepolis some of the -horrors of a state of siege, literally compellingits inhabitants to quaff "The stale of-horses, and the gilded pool That beasts would cougli'at;" 'with other nameless abominations, the outpourings of the com- mon sewers.' There are public pumps in London, but, for the sake-of consistency we suppose, many of these are so situated as to receive the 'drainings of graveyards. Elsewhere, wells and cisterns have been constructed in such a ,menner as to have,their 'contents mingled with the overflowing* of the adjacent cesspools. The frightful mortality by cholera in AlbiOn Terrace, Wands- worth, has been distmatly traced to that very cause. It is also worthy of especial note, that the localities which have been moat desolated by cholera, are those which are supplied by the Corn. ponies that procure their water from the-Thames below Vauxhall Bridge.

In Goldsmith's of the World there is an account Of cer:. tam n Tartar tipplings, that bear no remote analogy to-our London ways of using water. From a choice species of mushroom or agaric the Tartars extract a wine too costly to be within the means of any but the rich ; the poorer sort, being fordectlb con- tent themselves with the generous juice at second-hand, assemble round the place where the revels are held;' and we pray our readers to surmise the sort of transformation it is made- to un- dergo before it reaches their lips. Dr. Pereira, if we remember rightly, states in his commentaries on the Materia Medico, that the same identical dose of agaric wine has been known to make five Tartar tipplers happy one after the other: -It- is-not specu- lating too minutely to conjecture that in London the same par- ticles of animal sordes or of morbid poison may pass unaltered through the bodies of several human beings successively. The grievances we have here set forth are no new ones. They have been for many years the subject of loud and general remon- strance. Flesh and blood can endure them no longer. There is nothing to hinder their prompt and entire ieinoiial, except the re- sistance of the Water Companies on the 'one hand, and on the • other the absence of a power able and, willing to enforce the rea- sonable desire of the community. To do that is the proper office of the Government. If par hasard we possess a Government which is not altogether a sham, it will seriously take up this sub- ject at the commencement of next session : only a Government can bring together the needful information on the legal hinderanees that obstruct the supply of sweet and wholesome water for London and the other towns—only a Government has Power to grapple with those obstructions by a sweeping Vindication of public health against private monopoly and local corruption.