The history of sanitary progress in Croydon : a lecture delivered at the Literary and Scientific Institution, on Wednesday, April 6th, 1859 / by Alfred Carpenter.

  • Carpenter, Alfred, 1825-
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The history of sanitary progress in Croydon : a lecture delivered at the Literary and Scientific Institution, on Wednesday, April 6th, 1859 / by Alfred Carpenter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    must therefore embrace the geological situation of the town, so as to arrive at the extent of its available sources of that essential agent in the production of cleanliness; — without water no sanitary operations can be properly carried out. Our enquiry therefore resolves itself into four heads, viz.:— 1. The Conditiok of Ceoybon as eegaeds its Geological Situation and Watee Supply. 2. The Sanitary Condition of the Town befoee the ap- plication OF the Health of Towns' Act. 3. The Condition dueing the Peogeess of the Woeks. 4. The Eesult of those Woeks, and the Effect they HAVE HAD UPON THE VaLUE OF HUMAN LiFE. If sanitary science is anything else than a name, the results after an interval of six years ought to be visible, and the statistics of the town during those years, as compared Avith a preceding period, ought to leave conclusive evidence either for or against its usefulness. We will first consider the Geological condition of Croydon. This has been so often described, that it becomes somewhat hackneyed to speak of it as standing upon a stratum of gravel, intervening between the London clay upon the north and the great chalk formation on the south. Such how- ever is not its true geological situation, for it stands partly upon the lower beds of the great London Clay formation, known to geologists as the Woolwich beds, shewing them- selves above ground at Park Hill and Croham Hurst, and extending thence in a north-easterly direction into Kent; these beds are distinct and well defined, and where they dip beneath the surface, they are covered with a thick layer of diluvial drift and gravel. This condition is seen in the gravel pit just beyond the East Croydon Station The town therefore stands upon the verge of the great London basin, at the point of its junction with the chalk, an illus- tration of which is seen in the great chalk pit in Coombe Lane, beyond the reservoir: the clay indigitates with the chalk in different parts of the town in a very irregular manner, whilst in some situations, as on Duppas Hill and the Waldrous, clay, sand, gravel, and chalk are huddled together, apparently in inextricable confusion: the surface of the earth in the town itself shelves down to the valley of the Wandie, wliich river rises in the lower parts of the town, running thence to Waddon: this valley consists at its upper part of u thick