The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-12-29 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL PHILOSOPHICAL AND
LITERARY SOCIETY.

IMPORTANT LECTURE ON THE SUPPLY OF WATER TO

LIVERPOOL

?Last night a meeting of this Society was held in the
Lecture-room of the Royal Institution, the principal at-
traction of the evening being the announcement of a paper
to be read by John Cunningham, Esq., Architect, " On
the Geological Composition of the Neighbourhood of
Liverpool, as regards the Supply of Water." The room
was filled to repletion by scientific and literary gentlemen,
and Dr. Booth, the President of the Society, ably occu.
pied the Chair. From the lateness of the hour, we must
pass over two communications of considerable interest,
by Mr. Hardy, and the Rev. T. Dwyer, and can but
supply a bare outline of Mr. Cuu❑ingham's highly in-
teresting, and most able paper.
After a brief introduction, explanatery of the peculiar
geological strata i►► the district surrounding Liverpool,
tha lecturer stated that the question before them was one
of great importance to the inhabitants, both as regarded
their domestic comforts and their sanatcry condition. A

good and sufficien' supply of water was especially necea-
sary for the welfare of the poor; for whom the Corpora-
tion bad liberally provided wash-houses acrd baths. The
supply of water was not, however, nearly sufficient, or at
a sufficiently low price. But he did not blame the water
companies, who had done their best under the circum-
stances, yet as they could not do all that was required, he
trusted they would ab tam from all parliementary oppo-
_

sitien to a more efficient measure of supply. He had
himself given up some opinions which he had entertained
three years ago, owing to finding that wells in the imme-
diate locality had become lets productive, and would
finally verge towards exhaustion. The lecturer then
divided his subject into several •ge logical heads.
and proceeded to show that, from the formation of the
several strata in this neighbourhood to a great depth,
(which he illustrated by diagrams and a geological pap,)
and also taking into account the average annual weight of
rain that fell, it would be impossible to obtain the maxi-
mum supply from the locality which would be required
some years hence for so large and increasing a population.
lie showed that bath on the west side of Lancashire along
the Mersey, and in the Wirral peninsula, the upper strata
of the tertiary sandstone were underlaid by strata of clay.
&c., impervious to water, and broken up and dislocated
by some immense internal force ; beneath these were the
coal measures, also impermeable ; so that he concluded
that it was impossible to obtain the supply that would be
wanted by any system of artesian or ether wells. There
was also a great loss of surface water by agricultural
drainage, &c., and much of it was deteriorated by various
admixtures of deleterious matters. He proposed as a
means of s pply for at least some years to come, that
toe whole basin from opposite Runcorn, on the south,
along the Goatacre valley, and beyond Bootle on the
north, should be perforated with wells and the water col-
lected. The east side of the basin was to be preferred, as
the dip of the strata of sand stone was towards that
direction. This basin contained an area of about 80 square
miles; hut, calculating as he did, that about nth on!o
of the water that fell upon an average annually in this lo-
cality, namely, 32 to 38 inches, all that could be raised
would be only 12,730,000 gallons a-day. Exhaustion of
the water companies' workings was already going on. and

by going deeper little more could be obtained, and the
cost woull be much increased by additional pumping.
Wells in the town were also deteriorated by the percola-
tions from cess-pools and other impurities, and in that in

Sobo-street the water had become harder on its being
deepened, probably from the admixture of magnesia from
the beds of clay alluded to. He had beard of a scheme to
sink for water close to the river, on the supposition that
it would be found to be fresh, which was absurd, for
though fresh-water springs were found under the level of
this was caused by the pressure cf higher water
on shore forcing it up, and if wells were sunk in such vi-

the sea;

cinity, the operation would soon be reversed, and they
would fill with salt water, which could not be made fresh
by any kind of filtration.
Mr. TATEs noticed the succe
France, some of them

of Arte

thought it would be well to expend a 1
chalice of equal success.

sum on the

°logical can-

-aCCOIII-