THE CITY WATER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8980, 18 February 1888, Page 3

THE CITY WATER.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib,—ln reference to the correspondence concerning the purity of our water supply, and the possible contamination of the same by the close contiguity of night-soil deposit, I consider it a question of such importance that no time ought to be allowed to pass before a wrong of this nature is remedied. A simple experiment will prove to anyone how little to be relied on is that analyst's report which declared the city water pure. Allow the water-bottle on your toilet-table to remain covered, but the water unchanged for two or three days, and a startlingamount of slime and mossy vegetation will then be seen to have resolved itself from the impurities previously held in solution. My experience of the liability of feces and all decaying matter, to affect a spring of water by percolation, is that it depends entirely on the lay of the strata. If the strata of the ground be towards the water there is a probability of impurities being conveyed even from a very considerable distance. On the other hand, with the strata away from the sprint there would be no liability from percolation, though there might be from surface drainage. There is, however, another source' of danger from the near deposit of nightsoil, which is also alluded to by your correspondent, "Water" —the effluvia, which in some states of the atmosphere would, though invisible, cover the locality like a death-pall, and for the most deadly gases in which the oxygen of water has a great affinity. It is at present necessary either to filter the city water or boil it. X used to have a great liking for cold water as a drink ; but since coming to Auckland, and finding out the nature of the water supplied, by the above simple experiment] or observation, I have abjured it as poison. Need we wonder that typhoid is prevalent after a spell of dry weather, when chemical absorption of the soil is slow ? With the first wet that comes the swelling volume of the springs is heavily charged with the hitherto unchanged and accumulated impurities. There ought without delay to be an adequate investigation, and means adopted to remove the general uneasiness of citizens about the condition of such a vitally important article of consumption aa water is.—l am, &c., Thos. Dawes. February 16, 1888.