The Daily Chronicle of Tuesday gives an interesting account of
the scheme for bringing water to London from Wales, which has been drawn up by Mr. Binnie, the engineer of the County Council. He would make five artificial lakes (one of them as big as Ullswater) in the Welsh mountains, and then bring the water by a great aqueduct to the Metropolis. After crossing the Severn in a syphon pipe thirteen and a half miles long, and tunnelling through the Cotswolds, it would reach a point near Chedworth, and would then divide into two streams, one to fill a reservoir at Elstree for North London, and the other to fill one at Banstes.d for the Surrey side of the river. Like all great engineering proposals, the scheme is very fascinating, and has, we are told, awakened that latent Roman Emperor which inhabits the bosoms of all
of - en of County Councillors. We trust, however, that REMARI be spared the thirty or forty millions which the plan naa_. mt. Remember that the recent Royal Commission showed conclusively that the Thames could supply London with all the water it would want in the next forty years or so. There is nothing so dangerous as these great public works. Nature has given us plenty of pure water in the Thames, and would be an act of madness to neglect that supply, either to gratify the desire of the Council to emulate "the wild enormities. of ancient magnanimity" or to spite the existing Water Com- panies. Happy is the city that has no grandiose public works.
Previous page
