The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-07-04 00:00:00

n water, as

removing offal were not

lifricult

s incident to procuring water-supply would natu-

wate:

communit

,ial importance

as quantity

'egard to qualit,

are must be taken

from all

impurities ; but

it must alsc

mical admixtures, or means

must be taken carefully to separate from the water any-
thing deleterious which it may hold in solution. Such

T inseparable considerations in regard to water-supply

for any community, all the

difficulties to be encountered

in its realisation become vastly
which, like Liverpool, from the

augmented in a town

rapid increase of its popu-
lation, and its marvellously extending trade, has out-
grown, and is still outgrowing, all ordinary means of
calculation. The institutions and the means of comfort
which a quarter of a century ago were more than sufficient
for its utmost wants, are now greatly inadequate for its
merest necessities, and this disproportion between the
demands of comfort and the means of meeting
them is not to be overcome by the shufflings of
expediency, or the make-shift policy of accidental cir-
cumstances or isolated effort. On the contrary, the
requirements must be carefully noted, and means to
meet those requirements must be adopted on a large and
liberal scale, designed and carried out on a broad and
general principle, such principle being peculiarly requisite
in regard to the water-supply, to the drainage, and to the
ready means of traffic. Experience has taught the inhabitants
of Liverpool the necessity for a careful yet bold application
of liberal and general principles in all of these matters,
and all of them are happily in a fair way of being carried
out ; but as the application of these to their full extent is
not generally understood in any community, the adoption
of them necessarily involves much difference of opinion,
and not unfrequently gives rise to the ebullition of warmly
expressed feeling. Numerous instances of this could
readily be found in reference to the three topics above
alluded to ; and probably on no one of them was this free-
dom of individual judgment more prominently displayed
than respecting the famous Rivington Pike Water-works
scheme. Theoretical contention, however, has now in a
great measure subsided ; its place is occupied by a general
desire for the completion of the works, and much anxiety
'prevails as to the real state of the operations by which the
community of Liverpool is to receive so important an ad-
dition to their comforts as will be conferred by a constant
and abundant supply of pure and soft water, such as will
undoubtedly be furnished by the stupendous reservoirs at
Rivington, when they are completed and in full operation,
added to the means of supply already at command.
To supply a general, though necessarily imperfect, idea,
from personal observation, of the present state and rate
of progress of the new works, will be the object of the sub-
joined sketch, in submitting which it may be scarcely
necessary to state that perfect accuracy of detail is not
aimed at, the purpose being merely to convey an intel-
ligible notion of their leading features, magnitude, and
purposes, and to suggest rather than describe the modus
operandi by which they are being carried into effect.

To ensure a supply of water sufficient for the large and
increasing necessities of Liverpool, it was necessary to go
to a considerable distance ; and to secure an altitude which
would admit the application of the gravitation principle,

I it was indispensabl

should be selected.