a short distance from Waterloo Bridge, supplies some 16,000 houses with 1,500,000 gallons. This company has incurred considerable expense, by constructing reservoirs on Brixton Hill, one at an elevation of 150 feet above tide — and two others at different and lower ele- vations, one of which was & filter er, and transmitted the water to the other much purified. One other enterprise only remains to be noticed — The South London Water Works, for which a charter was obtained in 1805. The principal establishment is on Kenning- ton Common, near Vauxhall, and, like the other works, it derives its supply from the Thames, and raises and distributes it through iron pipes, by steam power. The main of this company was, in 1832, laid into the Thames, of four feet diameter, the largest iron pipe any where employed probably in water-works. The water flows through this main into a reservoir in Kennington Lane, from which it percolates through a filtering bank, composed of layers of coarse and fine gravel and sand, prior to its entering into another reservoir, where it also remains some time, before it is passed into the well of the distributing steam engine. The supply of this company extends to 12,000 houses, and exceeds 5,000,000 gallons daily. To complete this view of the works, which supply London and its suburbs, con- taining probably nearly 1,200,000 inhabitants, we annex, in a tabular form, extracts from a more extended return, made by these companies in 1834, to Parliament. It exhibits the number of houses supplied, the average quantity to each, the aggregate of the whole sup- ply of every company, and all the companies, the level at which it is furnished, and the average cost to the consumer. A TABLE, Showing- the number of Houses supplied by the Water Companies of London, ac- cording to returns made to Parliament, in 1824. Names of Companies. JNo. of Houses. Height of Supply above Thames. Average Daily Supply to each House. Average Charge per House. Total of gallons by each Company. New River, Chelsea, West Middlesex, Grand Junction, East London, South London, Lambeth, Southwark, 73,212 13,891 16,000 11,140 46,421 12,046 16,682 7,100 145 leet. 135 155 151| 107 80 185 60 241 gallons. 168 185 350 120 100 124 156 £\ 6s 6d 1 13 3 2 16 10 286 1 2 9 0 15 0 0 17 0 1 1 3 17,644,092 2,833,688 2,960,000 3,899,000 5,570,520 1,204,600 2,068,568 1,107,600 196,492 37,289,168 60 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. All the companies but two derive their supply from the Thames abreast of the city, and where the sewers empty into it, and all the filth of a crowded population. They all have recourse to steam engines, to raise their supplies to a height sufficient for distri- bution. The large iron mains, which project out nearly half across the river in some instances, are laid upon the bottom ; a method that could only be resorted to with safety in a river where there is but boat and barge navigation, as is the case with the Thames above Lon- don Bridge ; otherwise, these pipes would be in constant danger from the anchoring of vessels. Liverpool is supplied with water copiously by two companies, the Liverpool and Harrington Works, and the Boothe Water Works ; both rely upon natural springs, and both pump up the water to their reservoirs by steam. Manchester has also its water-works, the supply being drawn from the river Mad- lock, about a mile and a half from the town, which, by being dammed up, filled reservoirs prepared for it, whence it is, by steam power, raised to higher reservoirs. Unfortunately for the first undertaking, relying upon the judgment of Mr. Rennie, they laid down stone pipes, which, on the first application of the pressure of the head of water, burst or leaked to such an extent, as to defeat, for a time, the whole enterprise, and ruin the projectors. The works, however, passed, into other hands — iron pipes were substituted, and the town is now well supplied. Water Works of Edinburgh. — These works were commenced in 1819, and com- pleted in 1824, at a cost of £145,000, or about $725,000 ; the water is brought from the Crawley Springs — natural sources issuing from a bank of gravel ; they are collected in a stone reservoir, called the Fountainheads, at an elevation of 564 feet above the sea, at Leith, and 230 feet above Castle Hill. The distance from the source to the Castle Hill reservoir, in a direct line, is six miles and a quarter, but, by the line of the aqueduct, eight and a half miles. The water is conducted the whole distance through iron pipes, varying in diameter from fifteen to twenty inches, and in thickness from