Chemical and medical reports and evidence of the quality of the Loch Katrine water / Glasgow Corporation Water-works.

  • Glasgow (Scotland). Corporation
Date:
1854
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Chemical and medical reports and evidence of the quality of the Loch Katrine water / Glasgow Corporation Water-works. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    any length of time without acquiring the least trace of lead. The necessity for being prepared to give evidence before the Com- mittee of the House of Commons by a given time, prevented our continuing the experiments of the Trossachs sufficiently long to establish this point on the cisterns themselves; but we have kept pieces of lead which had been previously immersed in other waters in the Loch Katrine water, for several weeks, without the slightest trace of action being apparent, and even common plumbers’ lead, when kept in the water for a sufficient time, ceased to act upon a new quantity. But the experiments at the Trossachs do not completely fulfill the conditions under which the Loch Katrine water will be carried to Glasgow. In addition to iron and leaden pipes, it will be conveyed through many miles of a conduit built prin- cipally of the old red sandstone of the district, and in one place crosses a thin bed of limestone. Being aware that it frequently happens that though the water of a lake may act strongly on bright lead, the stream which flows from it, if examined some miles below its point of exit, is without action—a change mani- festly due to the rocks and pebbles of which its bed is composed— we have examined the action of the old red sandstone and lime- stone on Loch Katrine Water. By repeated experiments we have ascertained that when the Loch Katrine water is allowed to stand for 10 or 12 hours over fragments of the old red sandstone, of which the conduit will be made, that the action upon bright lead is so greatly diminished, as to be barely appreciable, and upon lead in its ordinary state, no action whatever could be detected, on applying the most delicate tests. The limestone produces a similar effect, but its influence is of much less importance as it forms only a thin bed with which the water is in contact for a very short time. With the sand- stone, however, the water will be in contact for a consider- able period, as we are given to understand that it is the material of which the greater part of the conduit will be built, and the time of flow through it will be about 10 or 12 hours.
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