The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-15 00:00:00

111 E SER.PIf.N INE.

4

TO THE EDITOR or THE TIMES.

Sir,—As the engineer employed by the Govern-
ment to cleanse the water of the Serpentine, I have
hitherto felt myself precluded from taking part- in
the singular controversy now raging in your co-
lumns. As, however, some of your correspondents
are—apparently from mere excess of unrestrained
vivacity—becoming very personal towards myself,
and Mr. John Lilwall especially so, I may, perhaps,
be permitted to correct them and him in several
important particulars.
First, as regards my profession, Mr. Lilwall com-
municates to the public the following gratuitous and
as he evidently imagines, very damaging informa-
tion :—" Personally I know nothing of Mr. Hawks-
ley"—this compliment I can truthfully reciprocate—
" but I venture to suggest that to consult that gen-
tleman, himself a contractor, upon various papers
relating to the purification of the Serpentine was,
to say the least, to place him in a most undesirable
position. Clearly his interest lay in the opposite
direction of deciding in favour of any plan not his
own. Than this no system could well be worse,"
&c. Now, although I am very happy to agree with
the principle enunciated by Mr. John Lilwall, I
am under the unfortunate necessity of dissenting
from his facts. I am not a contractor, nor ever was
a contractor, nor have 1 ever been concerned or in-
terested, directly orindirectly,in any contract what-
ever; on the contrary, I have for the last 30 years
been occupied in the practice of my profession as a
civil engineer, and most extensively in designing
and superintending the construction of waterworks
at home and abroad, under circumstances in which
the purification of water by the means about to, be
adopted at the Serpentine are more or less exten-
sively employed. I am, therefore, just the sort of
person to whom Mr. John Lilwall would advise the
Government to refer; and it was, probably, because
the Government have by anticipation coincided
with Mr. John Lilwall that I had the honour to be
asked to make a report. Mr. John Lilwall's other
statements, plausible as they appear, are unfortu-
nately equally dashing, and for the most part
equally wide of the truth. Their weight and au-
thority are entirely derived from the prominent
place with which you have honoured them in your
journal.
Having notoriously made a greater number of
hydraulic works than any otherliving person, I may
be expected to have acquired at least some reliable
knowledge of the expenses attending the pumping
and filtering of water. If I have possessed myself
of this knowledge, and provided always I were
that scandalum magnatum the " contractor"
that Mr. John Lilwall incontinently asserts me
to be, but which I am not,—by tte way,
,the
most indignant of your correspondents, affection-
ately quoted by Mr. John Lilwall as the firm which
is willing and anxious and endeavouring to effect
the same purpos 3in another fashion, hap I, ena to
be in that identical position—l should venture to
undertake to perform the whole operation in respect
to which that gentleman cites such formidable
figures for the comparatively small remuneration
of £3OO per annum.
On the general subject the truths of the matter
lie in a very narrow compass, and are mainly these :
—That the vast deposit at the bottom of the Ser-
pentine, black and deep as it is, does not affect the
condition of the supernatant water; that the water
of the Serpentine does not hold much organic
matter in solution, but, on the contrary, is essen-
ti.tlly clear, sweet, and inodorous—let there be no
mistake on this subject, for I am speaking of the
water;—that it is, nevertheless, to some extent
loaded with confervoidal and other forms of vegeta-
tion of a very primary and harmless character, com-
mon to and well known in most waterworks, and
in exposed lake waters generally ; that these can
be very readily removed by filtration, and that as
they will become reproduced under the favouring
action of summer light and heat—and they would
be just as rapidly produced in other water added
to the Serpentine as in the water now there—they
can be again as easily removed, and so from time
to time when and as the occasion may require.
I may further remark that the very simple, and
effectual operation now about to be performed is
entirely independent of the removal of the mud
or of the formation of an artificial beach for the
benefit of the bathers ; and that it would be just as
necessary for the preservation of the incumbent
water, after these alleged improvements had been
made, as it now is.
If your somewhat excited correspondents will not
take offence I will, with all deference to their
imaginative opinions, venture to recommend them
to go to the house of the Royal Humane
Society, on the north bank of the Serpentine,
there borrow a glass or a bottle, take a boat and
pull off from the side, then (if their prejudices will
allow them, for they need not be alarmed) view,
taste, and smell the watcr; afterwards filter some
of it through apiece of white blotting paper (this
can be obtained properly folded at any respectable
druggists's) ; put some that is filtered and some that
is unfiltered under a good working microscope, with
Dr. Carpenter's or some other standard work on
microscopic forms by their side ; evaporate a quart
or more of the water very slowly, and at a low
temperature, so as to bring down all the inorganic
salts and all the organic matter ; weigh the dry
residue in a small platinum crucible, ignite and
weigh again (the difference of the two weighings
will consist of organic matter and some gases com-
bined with the inorganic salts), and your core-
spondents will then, it may be, learn what they do
not seem to know, that neither sensibly nor che-
mically is there much that is wrong with the greatly
abused water of the Serpentine, and that the little
that is wrong may be readily set right by the
simple process of filtration. That the water of the
Serpentine is preserved fresh and sweet is a natural
consequence of its magnitude and depth, and the
same result is observable in all large sheets of
water, while the contrary effect is experienced in
all small sheets of shallow depth. The reason is
almost too obvious to mention ; the depth retards
the depuration of the mass, while the extent of
surface affords facility for agitation and the conse-
quent combination of the water and its devitalised
organic contents with that all purifying element
oxygen.

For the information of your readers generally, I
may also state that the proposed constructions will
be of a decidedly pleasing character, that the
filter-beds will create neither a nuisance nor an
eyesore, and that the public may safely trust the
First Commissioner, whose heart is in the matter,
to tolerate nothing either in the design or the work-
ing operation which can afford ground of offence to
the most fastidious taste. The general effect will be
that of an Italian flower garden, with fountains
and vases, and four ornamental sheets of water.
The machinery will be noiseless and smokeless ' • it
will be placed in a lodge-like cottage, forming also
the attendant's residence, and will be disposed
among the large trees at some little distance from
the other works. While on the one hand there
will be nothing pretentious or obtrusive, so, on the
other hand, there will be nothing to hide ; and if
my ability be equal to the task I have undertaken
I shall succeed in combining, without sacrifice, the
useful with the agreeable. The soiled sand (which
will be insignificant in amount) will be hand-,
carted in the early morning to the machinery, by
which it will be washed, and the small quantity of
water dirtied in the process will flow off into the
adjacent Ranelagh sewer. The filthy duck-pond,
one foot deep, at the head of the Serpentine will
be o
aiwvbel ibtreirdagt edew, and the
h e ree stagnantfte
hereafter
be f epdo portion
a of c theen l ,
idaekre.
of the " contractors,"
a b evsi ttrhe am
your ofl
epausrei fieende wwaotredr .
Messrs. Easton, Amos, and Sons. It appteabres that
nianowny ea"Tintersrespted" pernopion-
ttilii
ee shabit
tel
fe
rne
ilni agv et
bfeoirr
sitions on the attention of the Government, and
that they seem to think they have a vested right in
all works for water supply undertaken by the Go-
vernment; so much so, indeed, that they have
angrily resented an official negatite to an unasked-
for proposition. Now, of these gentlemen's schemes
I never so much as heard till some time after my
report had been sent in and adopted, and then only
because Messrs. Easton and Amos forwarded a
letter to the First Commissioner almost, ifnot quite,
rebuking that important officer of the Crown for.
being so adventurous as to accept my profescional
views in preference to their trade propositions.
(See hereon their own letters published by them-
selves).. I then, however, for the first time-became
acquainted with 11Iessrs. Easton and Amos's scheme,
End all I can say in relation to it—fbr I was
not called in to sit in judgment on any One's sug-
gestions—is, that if my powers had, as IVr.Lilwall
insinuates, included those of an arbiter between
competitors, I should not have awarded the prize to
Messrs. Easton and Amos, whose device is, in my
deliberate opinion, unnecessarily expensive (taking
working charges into account), based on false pre-
ieances o f no small
pre-
mises both as regards the influence itzo:dlslhaanvd:
exercised on the Serpentine and the quantity of
awater
certaint obe obtainedtop roduc e
evilfromconsequences
wellns
eu
magnitude in and around St. James's-furrk. Had
Messrs. Easton and Amos received the commands
of the First Commissioner I should co! rtainly not
have considered it my duty to interfere publicly or
privately with the performance of theil
•
appointed
functions. It may, however, well be tilt Lt "contrac-
tors " and professional men regard f,uch interfe-
rences from very different points of • view;-:-I am,
Sir, your most obedient servant,

3yEY.
30, Great George-street, WesttainAter, AuB 13.