ON TREE-TRUNK WATER-PIPES.
71
on the Weald, remarks, p. 396, that on these Hastings Beds
there are 97 towns and villages, 79 of which have sandy sites.
Careful inspection of the "drift" maps of Essex discloses a
similar preference for sandy or gravelly sites in that county.
From the Sixth [and final] Report of the Rivers Pollution Com-
mission, a Blue-Book published in 1874, we learn that even at
that date a very large number of our smaller towns were depen-
dent on pumps and shallow wells. Essex not being a manu-
facturing district, and most of the county being outside the
Thames Basin, five only of its towns and districts are mentioned
where the nature of the local water supply is given. Wanstead
was then supplied by the East London Company; Leigh
depended upon shallow wells. Braintree Waterworks are men-
tioned, but not their date. At Harwich a borehole was then
being made in the Chalk. And at Sudbury the supply had been
from shallow wells in 1870, but the Corporation had just carried
out waterworks. In this Blue-Book the nature of the pipes in
local use is scarcely ever mentioned.
But there is a short chapter "On the deterioration of potable
water by transmission through mains and service pipes." In
this chapter there is no mention of wooden pipes, the subjects
discussed being the "Injury to the potable waters by cast
iron mains"; the "Injury to water by the improper construc-
tion of the joints of the mains"; and the "Injury to potable
waters by leaden service pipes." As regards the iron mains, the
injury to the water was caused by the rusting of the iron. We
learn, however, that by "a simple method having the sanction of
more than 20 years' experience this corrosion and its consequences
can be prevented." Details of the process are then given.
As this Blue-Book was (as already remarked) published in
1874, it becomes clear that in the first half of the last century
there were more solid objections to the use of iron mains than
those which were merely the result of prejudice. But the early
defects of iron pipes exercised an influence not in causing any
revival of wooden ones, but in retarding the formation of local
waterworks, and the disuse of pumps and shallow wells.
In this Blue-book there is a chapter on "The Propagation of
Typhoid Fever by Water." Among the places mentioned as
having suffered from outbreaks of typhoid fever are Page Green,
south of Tottenham (1864 and 1865), Terling (1867), and