16 NOVEMBER 1850, Page 2

The Board of Health publishes the industrious researches of its

agent the Honourable William Napier, on the subject of water supply for the Metropolis. The evidence which should have sup- ported the previous reports seems to be entirely burked, and in its place we get Mr. Napier's interesting pursuits in natural history, and his suggestion of a plan altogether new : the enormous reser- voirs for the rain of Bagshot Heath are discarded, and we are to have the springs of Farnham hills collected in draining- pipes and brought by a main to a hole in Wimbledon Common that will store two days' supply. The scheme means only to double the present sources ; and therefore is only prospective for about fifty years. It looks very like the experimental plan which pre- ceded. it ; and it may perhaps be superseded by a third plan before the meeting of Parliament. Meanwhile, we are as far from a truly comprehensive and all-sufficing public scheme as ever ; while pri- vate enterprises for improved supply are forbidden by Parliament, in deference to those expectations which the Board still requires us to maintain on its exclusive behalf.