Note 52 — SECOND ANNUAL REPORT.

This is illustrated in the analysis of Bishopsgate pump-water, just alluded to. The very large quantity of nitrates, there referred to that water, must be due to the oxidation of human bodies in the adjoining soil, which serves in part as gathering-ground to the spring. I should fear that, during rain-fall, this oxidation of organic compounds may not always have completed itself, and that materials of decomposition still in progress of decay may thus often be mingled in the water. [I have lately had occasion to recommend that the use of Aldgate pump should be discontinued on account of its water containing, in addition to a large quantity of alkaline nitrate, so much unoxidised organic matters, as were sufficient to give it a foul taste.—J. S., 1854.]