The sewage committee of 1864 : and its report as to the purification of river water from town sewage / by Thomas Spencer.

  • Spencer, Thomas.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The sewage committee of 1864 : and its report as to the purification of river water from town sewage / by Thomas Spencer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    that at present, the Company divides 10 per cent, among its share- holders, and, as it happens, while I write, a bill is pending in Parliament, promoted by the municipal authorities of the town, seeking powers to purchase the works from the Company. The same system of purification has been in operation in Spalding (Lincolnshire) some four or five years, with equal success. Previously, there was no public supply at all. People obtained water where they could. Some from impure shallow wells; others, from the rain caught on roofs; whilst the bulk, who had not wells, in dry weather obtained it from those who had. No supply of even tolerably pure water was to be had at any reasonable distance from the town, so as to induce a Company to embark capital with any chance of its return. At the same time, the great ditches in the neighbourhood contained an abundance of highly coloured drainage water from the adjoining fens, but no one dreamed of recommending a supply from these sources for the town. The ague, which the inhabitants of these districts are so much liable to, has always been attributed to the use of this water. Soon after my system of purification became known to Messrs. Easton and Amos, the eminent engineers, they at once saw it would be the very thing for Spalding. Experiments -were accordingly made to purify the coloured fen water, which wrere highly successful. This led to the formation of a Company to supply the town from this source, when purified. Already the Company pays a hand- some dividend; and above all, the inhabitants are perfectly satisfied with the purified drainage water. In proof of which, I may mention that, on the formation of the Company, many urged the promoters to go to springs at a considerable distance for the supply. However, the distance was too great; consequently, the drain water, after purification, much to the annoyance and fear of many, became the recognised source of supply to the town. Last year, during the extreme drought, the surface drain water began to fail, when the supply became dependent on a few springs that still held out, at its bottom. The alteration that consequently took place in the quality of the water was soon discovered by the inhabitants, who began to call out for a return to the purified soft water of the formerly much abused drains,—on which they had been thriving healthily for the previous four years. A considerable time after the completion of the works, Messrs. Easton sent me the following letter:—