LONDON SINKING

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXX, Issue 3627, 3 July 1939, Page 7

LONDON SINKING

It has been discovered that the area covered by the City of London is gradually sinking, in parts as much as an inch every four years. Not long ago there was grave concern about the foundations of St. Paul's Cathedral, and some authorities say that the Tower Is slowly creeping towards the river. This subsidence is due to the fact that London rests on a cushion of subterranean lakes and that the w-ater is being drawn off at a tremendous rate. While there is no danger that the supply will in time be too small for the population, it must be recorded that the level of one well has dropped ninety-three feet in fifty years, and the fountains in Trafalgar Square, W’hich were played by natural pressure, now require pumps, for tbe source on which they rely has dropped 120 feet since they were designed. Gradual lessening of the water cushion has, so geologists tell us, been one reason why London has sunk 70 feet since the Stone Age, but the present rate is so alarming that the city engineers plan to sink wells outside the Greater London area and bore through the bed of the Thames, and thus replenish the underground supply in times of flood.