The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-03-28 00:00:00

preotiQ )
At those ot
, attend

Corresponbente.

-
THE WATER SUPPLY.

To the Editors.
Our citizens have for some time been distreseed and
looking rather seedy for want of water. Various
mysterious causes for this privation have been alleged....
but none calculated to console those whose pockets will
no doubt, in due time, be made to feel the expense of
repair§ at the works, and whose persons are suffering.
in the meanwhile, discomfort both as respects tea and
toilet. What the public works of the place, inch as
they are, will do in c.se of this e oergeney being pep.
keeled, I hardly care to speculate. Where 'team In
used, as in your own establishment, it becomes a serioue
question. The announcement is that the water ean
only be let on betwixt twelve at night and six in the
morning, lest anybody should want to use it ! At all
events, I know tliat in the lower pert of the town, ou
Friday evening, the greatest excitement prevailed is
consequence of the town crier having intimated that
the supply would be put on for three hones in the
afternoon—from three to six. He was a false prophet.
The water did not come. At learnt it never reached the
lower levels. Those wh o enjoy the blessing of pump wells
are now supplying their parched and thirsty neighbour?.
A curious explauation is Mrculated—that instead of
having too little water at the waterworks, they have
too much, Which causes their pumps to go too deep, and
they won't draw ; but, it is added, "they are sinking a
new reservoir, arid it will be all right." The Dorchester
people are, however, fond of looking into thingi for
themselves, and "three men" are reputed to have goes
and looked into the reservoir, new or old is uncertain.
but there war no water there. Now when these works
were first carried out all this was predicted, both by
geogolists and practical men, and, it would be a curious
illustration of humbug, should it turn out that, after
all, we Doreestrians have had to pay and are paying for
Ws water, we should be about as happy in our enjoy.
ment of it as Tantalus was in that of his cup —that iqb
better without it. Unless in a dry summer we weld
always depend upon ottr wells, I know I had one; it
WWI near the water, and a little deeper than my meth.
hours, and it never did go dry. But here, in II MOM
spring, we cacnot depend in the least upon our water.
works. The geologists said, and said truly, when the
headings were I ven in the chalk "Chalk fa a rediman
tary deposit which ii en emit,. found accumulated in a
ha4u, and therefore Is thickest at the °entre of this
deposit, and thinnest at the out-crop, or round the
edges of the basin. You cermet get water till you
cOme to the greensand which underlies the chalk, and
you can only retain water in the clay which underlies
the greensand." But what did our engineers do? To
get a head pressure of water on an impossible elevatica.
they thought of sinking their reservoir where the chalk
was almost at the thickest. And, diseovering the folly
of going down 600 feet to the greenaand, they 'topped
midway in the chalk bed, and there formed a reservoir
of paddled clay to retain the catch water from the
surface percolating through the chalk— for It could be
nothing else. If this be so, is it any wonder it should
fail them? Their puddle may be imperfect, sod ths
leakage in a stratum so porous,, chalk will, of ammo
be perfection—and there's where our water MIS
Yours obediently,
DRY AS DUST.
Since writing the above I have heard that they {hang
bored again, and they have touched the greeneand.
and that the flow of water is really so oopions that
their pumps ore too deep. On Sunday we had a few
hours supply in the afternoon lust when it wasn't
wanted. D. A. D.