salts. Thames water contains, moreover, a considerable proportion of lime compounds dissolved in it; so much so that the average supply of water to a single family would yield in eight months a hundred pounds of chalk.1 Is it to be expected that epidemics will spare a dense population crowded in dark and ill-ventilated houses on both sides of our river, and labouring from morning till night to obtain such scanty means as will procure insufficient, and, in most cases, unhealthy food? If England be the first country in the world for manufactures, what will happen if the manufacturing districts in England, and more especially in London, cannot even provide good air and good water for its industrious inhabitants? One thing is evident—that what is to be done to purify the river ought not to be delayed; and that we must avoid, at any price, such frightful epidemics as those which have lately decimated the population of Lambeth and other districts on the side of the Thames. 1 The 'Chemist,' for July, 1856. 1. Amorphous masses and vegetable hairs, found in Sewers and in Thames water. 2. Fragment of a muscular fibre. 3. Other organic matters present in the water. |