66 over the ferry," for this interpretation of the word has also been suggested. It was probably mainly due to the ferries that the south side of the Thames soon acquired importance, though there was a bridge over the river from the very earliest times. Dion Cassius refers to a bridge over the Thames in A.D. 44, but it is not quite certain whether Dion Cassius* is accurate in this respect. The first stone bridge across the Thames was completed in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and this bridge-Peter of Colechurch's work-practically stood till it was removed, almost in our own time, to make way for Rennie's structure. But whether it was due to the bridge or to the ferries, London south of the Thames, or, to use Camden's words, "that most famous market-town in the county called now the Borough of Southworke, from its south situation opposite to London," soon became populous. So far from separating the two rising cities, the Thames-the main street of the town-actually united them. The second use of the Thames to London, as the great connecting link between London and the southern counties of England, must not be lost sight of. In early times, weirs and locks were only obstructions; they were gradients up which barges had to be dragged with ropes. They were used for the purpose of turning mills; so that we have constant records in history of contests between bargees and mill-owners for the destruction or retention of locks. It was not till the beginning of the sixteenth century that the modern system of locks, that is, of raising and lowering vessels to different levels by the action of water, was invented. The inventor is said to have been Leonardo da Vinci, the famous painter. When these locks were introduced into England, which was not until many years after their invention, they produced a * An ancient historian, who wrote in the early part of the 3rd century. great change in English means of communication. It became clear at once that communication by water could be made independent of levels, and that, by the help of locks, water communication could be carried over a comparatively straight course. The consequence of this state of things very soon became apparent; the advantages of water communication were no longer confined to the places which were situated on navigable rivers. There was no place to which it was impossible to lead a canal, no place, therefore, which was necessarily deprived of the advantages of water communication. It no longer became indispensable that a town should be situated on a navigable river, since, if nature had not given it a water-way, the water-way could be brought to it by man.-St. Paul's Magazine. CHAPTER XIII. WATER SUPPLY OF LONDON. Few towns were naturally better supplied with water than London. Six centuries ago, the town was intersected with considerable streams, some of which exist still and help to flush our sewers; while the memory of others is preserved only in the names of streets, which faintly remind us of them. Surface drainage has in some measure altered this state of things. The innumerable springs in the upper geological strata have long since become more or less exhausted, and, in consequence of surface drainage, are no longer constantly replenished as they used to be. Three hundred years ago these superficial beds were richly charged with water, and tributary after tributary rose in consequence in the immediate neighbourhood of London, and flowed into the Thames. Of these tributaries the River of Wells, or Turnemil Brook, as it was subsequently called, was the most important. It was not only a considerable stream of of itself, but it was swelled in its turn by two considerable brooks,-Old Bourne, "a great water in the west suburbs," whose name still survives in Holborn; and the "Flete" or Swift Brook-a brook which subsequently degenerated into a ditch.* Centuries ago the River of Wells suffered bad treatment. "In a fair book of Parliament records," says Stow, "it appeareth that a Parliament being holden at Carlisle in the year 1307, Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, complained that whereas, in times past, the course of water running at London under Old Borne Bridge and Fleet Bridge into the Thames had been of such breadth and depth that ten or twelve ships, navies, at once, with merchandise, were wont to come by the aforesaid Bridge of Fleet, and some of them unto Old Borne Bridge; now the same course, by filth of the tanners and such other, was sore decayed, also by raising of wharfes, but especially by a diversion of the water, made by them of the New Temple for their Mills." Henry Lacy's petition,-perhaps the earliest petition in England against river pollution,—was attended with some results. The River of Wells was cleaned and dredged; the mills were removed; but the river was never so large again, and in consequence it suffered a severe loss, the loss of its good name;"-hitherto it had been a river; it became henceforward known as a brook. 66 Nearly 200 years later, in 1502, it was cleaned again, and nearly 90 years afterwards, in 1589, another attempt of a more ambitious nature was made to clean it. It seems then to have been supposed, that by drawing some springs into it near its source at Highgate, its volume might be increased; but the attempt failed; the increase of population played its part, and the river became more foul than ever. Wall Brook, another important tributary, which derived its "The king of dykes."-POPE. name from the wall of the town, but which in the days of the Conqueror was known as "Running Water," was in comparatively early days" vaulted over with brick and made level with the street and lane, so that the course of Wall Brook is now hid under the ground." This brook is supposed by some persons to have given a name, Ludgate, to one of the gates of the town. If this derivation be correct, Ludgate would be Fludgate, or Floodgate, the gate by the river. Lang Borne was the third of the great brooks which flowed through the old City. It was a great stream of water which sprang from the ground in Fen Church Street. What a lesson there is in the name when it is properly written! but like Wall Brook, Lang Borne was soon walled over, and its existence almost forgotten. Thus the streams which in the old days supplied London with water, one by one failed; and the water question in its modern aspect arose. The citizens were forced to seek "sweet water from abroad." "Abroad," it must be confessed, bore a very different meaning then from what it does now. Tye Bourn, a brook which will probably be forgotten, when the memory of Wall Brook, Holborn, and the Fleet still survives, -was the distant source from which water was taken. The pleasant fields through which the Bourn flowed afforded an ample supply of water to the London of Henry III. As London still grew, the supply from Tye Bourn proved insufficient, and the good folk of the city were forced to seek for water from other sources. Sir Hugh Myddleton undertook in Queen Elizabeth's time the great work,-which has immortalized him,—of leading the New River to London. The little tributaries in the immediate neighbourhood of London were exhausted. Another and a more distant tributary, "the gulphy Lee," as Pope calls it, was chosen. But Lea waters were not then, and are not now, particularly clear. Thames water, even in London, was, at the end of the sixteenth century, absolutely clearer than the New River water, when Thames water was for the first time used for the supply of London. One Peter Morris, a Dutchman, who has been forgotten because his work has proved less enduring than Sir Hugh's, drew water from the Thames by a water-wheel working under one of the arches of London Bridge, and we are told that "the water did sooner become clearer than the New River water." This Morris was the first person who raised water to a height in England; he threw it, in the presence of the Lord Mayor, over the steeple of St. Magnus' Church. It seems that he performed the feat to some purpose, for the City granted him a second arch of the bridge for his wheel, and a 500 years' lease. Morris's descendants sold the lease in 1701 to one Soans for £38,000, but, large as the price seems, Soans' bargain was a good one, for, after prevailing on the City to grant him another arch of the bridge, he divided the undertaking into 500 shares of £300 each, and "it hath a good prospect of turning to account and to gain upon the New River, having some advantage of that water." It is curious to read of Thames water having advantages over Lea water, but the water of the Thames was exceptionally clear. Dryden talks of "the silver Thames," and, to show that he is writing of the Thames at London, adds, "her"—London's-" own domestic flood." Gray used the same epithet, "his silver winding way." And Stow tells us that "after a great flood you may take up haddocks with your hand beneath the bridge, as they float aloft on the water, whose eyes are so blinded with the thickness of the water . . . otherwise the water of itself was very clear." The Pollution Commissioners, writing in 1866, add their testimony to the natural purity of Thames water. "The special conditions in the geology," they observe," and surface configuration of the basin, render the water singularly pure for so large a river. The water, as it flows gently down, has also the power of becoming oxidized and purified to a considerable degree.' The thickness of the water in flood time was, however, due |