History of the Water Supply of the World / arranged in a comprehensive form from eminent authorities, containing a description of the various methods of water supply, pollution and purification of waters, and sanitary effects, with analyses of potable waters, also geology and water strata of Hamilton county, Ohio, statistics of the Ohio river, proposed water supply of Cincinnati.

by Thomas J. Bell

Although the water of the Thames has been submitted to analyses by different chemists, on many hundred occasions, no constituent which could be pronounced noxious, has been detected; but the history of the water traced in the inorganic constituents above referred to, always reveals that which is, indeed, well known to be the fact—its previous contamination with sewage or animal matters—(Rivers Pollution Commission, 1874.)

The area of water-shed drainage of the Thames above pumping station is 3,675 square miles, the minimum summer flow of 350 millions of gallons daily. There are one million persons above the intakes of pumping works. The whole river and its principal tributaries are under strictest sanitary regulation, which the government is able to enforce, notwithstanding a great mass of sewage is poured into the stream.

The Rivers Pollution Commission, of 1874, sum up their investigation of the Thames and Lea Rivers as follows:

“1st. That the river receives the sewage from a large number of towns and other inhabited places, the washings of a large cultivated land, and the filthy discharge from many industrial processes and manufactures.

“2d. That the water is used for bathing, washing of sheep and cattle, and dirty linen and putrid carcasses of animals float upon its surface.

“3d. That it is the common water way for a large amount of dangerous polluting matter, etc.

“4th. That in time of flood a large proportion, both of the suspended and dissolved filth, is conveyed down to the intakes, and in ordinary weather considerable portion of soluble organic matter makes its way to the pumping works, and is still present in the water distributed to the consumers.

“5th. That the water is, nevertheless, when efficiently filtered, free from any offensive taste or odor.

“6th. That, notwithstanding the application of partial remedies, for sewage pollution, at Banbury, Eton, and Windsor, and the great care exercised by most of the companies in the storage and filtration of the water, the organic pollution contained in the Thames water delivered in London, though subject to fluctuations from the greater or less prevalence of floods, does not diminish. The proportion of organic impurity present in Thames water, as delivered in London, was: