these, and the pumps about them, have been denounced and condemned. The horrible Broad Street pump near Golden Square was shown to have been so foul as to have caused death to the drinkers therefrom in the cholera epidemic of 1854. Dr. Letheby, a few years since, denounced many of the City pumps. Unfortunately the worst wells in London, and those which contain the largest amount of nitrates, produced by the decomposition of organic matter, yield the brightest and the most popular waters; waters that sparkle and have a body in them, and yet deceptively carry disease into the frame of the unsuspecting drinker.*

In a larger treatment of this subject than is here practicable, we should advert at length to the already realised and recog nised advantages flowing from the introduction of lake water into Glasgow, and pure hill-drainage water into other towns, and hence we should deduce the desirableness of looking to these great and bountiful natural reservoirs for the rapidly increasing populations of our great seats of trade and manufacture. The bringing of the pleasant and pure water of Loch Katrine to Glasgow has been an invaluable achievement for Glasgow, and as it was effected under the superintendence of Mr. Bateman, he is entitled to respectful attention when he propounds a far grander scheme for a far larger population.

The engineering works involved in that undertaking were considerable, though not difficult. The aqueduct from its commencement at Loch Katrine to the Mugdock Reservoir is close upon twenty-six miles long, thirteen of which were tunnelled. Of these thirteen miles, for nearly four there are iron pipings across valleys, and for the remaining thirteen there are open cuttings and bridges. The total cost of the aqueduct was 468,0007., or an average of 18,0007. per mile. The entire work cost 761,000l.; the land and compensation, 70,0007.; and the parliamentary expenses, engineering, and sundries, 87,000l., making together a total of 918,0007.

Such was the cost of the works, and we have previously stated the delivery of water by means of them. The financial results of this well-matured enterprise may be inferred from the

* Dr. Farr, in his Report upon the Mortality of Cholera in Eng land 1848-9, remarks: To warn any class of men against the use of unclean excremental waters, even filtered, may appear useless. But 'it is now known that it enters into the supply of some of the prin cipal cities of Europe, and contaminates the eau sucrée of Paris as well as the house water of London. The disagreeable revolting nature of this truth has probably been a cause of its suppression, and the consequent perpetuation of an insufferable nuisance.'

following brief statement:-Twenty-five years ago, the gross revenue of the two Glasgow water companies was a little less than 25,000l.per annum. Now the annual revenue of the Water Commission is 90,000l. So rapidly have the population and manufactures of the City increased, that since 1856 the Commissioners have been able to expend nearly a million in executing the new water-works, and at the same time to pay large annuities guaranteed to the water companies, without adding materially to the amount of the water-rate. It appears, indeed, certain that a few years of similar prosperity will enable the Commissioners to reduce the rates even below the amounts levied by the old water companies."

It cannot but be lamented that so large an amount of capital has been fruitlessly expended in many inefficient public waterworks. Only of late years do we seem to be well informed on the most copious, pure, and attainable sources. Only, too, of late years can we have become sensible of the positive pollutions to our streams caused by the very improvement in the drainage of towns adjacent to them. Agricultural improvements have their share in the pollution, by drainage from lands manured with the refuse of towns and with noxious chemical compounds. We are therefore rejoiced to find that we can resort to the rainreceiving mountains, and avail ourselves of their liquid treasures, even with ultimate financial advantage. We believe that, when the public are acquainted with the value of these resources, and with their availableness at an ultimately remunerative expenditure, they will be prepared for their more extended adoption.

We have now before us the outline of a proposal recently made by Mr. Thomas Dale, Engineer to the Hull Corporation Water-works, for the supply of water to various towns from the lake districts of Cumberland and Westmoreland. The exposure of the high mountains in this district to a seaward aspect, occasions an immense amount of rainfall on an area of several

hundred square miles. The details of rainfall at Seathwaite from 1845 to 1853 clearly show this abundance, and exhibit an annual average of 140 inches. Two of the lakes, Ulleswater and Haweswater, from their altitude, great volume and purity of water, and the extensive precipitous area of rainfall, are the best adapted for supplying towns. Ulleswater is about nine miles in length, and varies in breadth from a quarter of a mile to two miles. The colourless transparency of its waters is remarkable, and their level is 477 feet above the mean tidal

Paper on the Glasgow Waterworks, by James M. Gale, C. E. Glasgow, 1864.

level, as determined by the Ordnance Survey Observations at Liverpool. Haweswater is less in area, but of a greater altitude, being 694 feet above the datum mentioned. Mr. Dale assumes the drainage area of the two lakes at 100 square miles, and the depth of annual average rainfall at 140 inches. Thence he calculates upon an average discharge of 5 million gallons per square mile, every twenty-four hours daily throughout the year (allowing for evaporation and absorption), being at the rate of 550,000,000 gallons average total discharge into the two lakes. From these he would supply the under-mentioned principal towns with a gross quantity of 131,000,000 gallons, at the rate of supply affixed to each town:—

He estimates the total expenditure and revenue as follows:

If the total capacity of supply be assumed as 150,000,000 gallons daily, and this could be distributed at sixpence per thousand gallons, then the total annual revenue would be 1,368,7507.

We have thus given an outline of the plans by which the mighty Metropolis and seventeen northern manufacturing towns might be copiously supplied with unexceptionable water. It requires no particular sagacity to foresee that the satisfaction of the exigencies of London primarily, and several other important towns secondarily, will become the great engineering problem of the day. Without doubt even now the domestic water economy of our country is seriously defective and demands attention. Our great consolation is, that in this sea-girt isle, and with the copious rainfall of some of our districts, there need be no irremediable deficiency. The mountains, the lakes, the unpolluted and many minor streams, are unfailing depositories of excellent water, if only our science, our toil, and our capital are perseveringly directed towards them.

ART. IV.-1. Maria Theresia und Marie Antoinette, Ihr Briefwechsel während der Jahre 1770-1780, herausgegeben von ALFRED RITTER VON ARNETH. Paris und Wien: 1865.

2. Correspondance inédite de Marie Antoinette. Publiée sur les Documens originaux par le Comte PAUL VOGT D'HUNOLSTEIN. Troisième édition. Paris: 1864.

3. Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, et Madame Élisabeth. Lettres et Documens inédits publiés par F. FEUILLET DE CONCHES. (Second Tirage.) Trois Tomes. Paris: 1864.

Ir the authenticity of these several collections of letters of the last Queen of France and of her nearest connexions could be irrefragably established, we should without hesitation assign to them the highest place among the innumerable memorials of the French Revolution. They bring Marie Antoinette before us in the freshness of her girlish royalty, when she passed, at fifteen, from the domestic circles of Schönbrun and Laxenburg to the depraved Court of Louis XV. and the pestilent intrigues of Versailles. They follow her through the earlier years of her reign, when the refinement of her tastes and the vivacity of her affections were struggling with the severe exigencies of her actual position and the dark harbingers of her tremendous destiny. They contain, lastly, a large addition to the evidence already in our possession of her courage and contrivance-her noble bearing and her devoted energy in defence of those she loved-when the ranks of her enemies were closing around her, and the realm over which she had reigned was narrowed to the miserable turret of the Temple and the dungeon of the Conciergerie. These letters illustrate, in the most remarkable manner, her qualities and her defects, her virtues and her faults, her strength of purpose and her errors of judgment. We rise from a careful and repeated perusal of them with the conviction that the whole character of the Queen is now before us, and not only of the Queen, but of her husband, her sister, and her nearest friends. The stately figure of Maria Theresa ushers in the group, not without impressive warnings of the impending tragedy; and the humorous scepticism and shrewd sense of Joseph II. complete the singular picture. So much, at least, of these letters is beyond all question true and authentic, that the omission of all the suspected documents would not materially alter or injure the general effect of the correspondence; and we regret

that publications of such deep historic interest should require at our hands in the first instance the investigation of a charge of literary forgery. Such, however, is the case. Soon after the appearance of M. d'Hunolstein's and M. Feuillet de Conches' collections in Paris, another volume was published by Ritter von Arneth in Vienna, extracted from the archives of the Imperial family; and a comparison between these different versions of the correspondence between Marie Antoinette and her mother, which has been set on foot and conducted with great ingenuity by M. von Sybel, an eminent German critic, has led him to impeach the authenticity of the earlier papers produced by the French editors, and consequently to throw a shade of suspicion over the whole of their work.

To put the reader in possession of the elements of this controversy, we must, first, briefly describe the nature and pretensions of the three collections: and we begin with that of Ritter von Arneth, because its genuineness being indisputable, it has been applied as the text or canon to determine the genuineness of documents found elsewhere. The following is the Vienna editor's account of his materials:

The correspondence of Maria Theresa and her daughter which is here published is at this moment, and, most probably, always has been, preserved in the private library of the head of the Imperial family. The volume which contains it is inscribed, "1770-1780. Corre"spondance de S. M. l'Impératrice-Reine avec la Reine de France." The whole collection consists of ninety-three letters of Marie Antoinette to her mother, of which thirty-seven are the originals, the remainder are copies, which were evidently made to the order of Maria Theresa, by her confidential cabinet secretary, Charles Joseph Baron von Pichler, in his own handwriting. Several of Marie Antoinette's letters exist, both in the original and, at the same time, in Pichler's well-known handwriting. These are, therefore, the best proofs of the conscientious diligence with which Pichler performed his task. The seventy answers of Maria Theresa exist, as might be inferred from the nature of the case, only in copies made by Pichler. It may be inferred from one of Marie Antoinette's own letters (that of July 12, 1770), that the originals were probably destroyed by her to whom they were addressed.' (P. ix.)

It is contended that these letters form but a part of the correspondence between mother and daughter in ten years of separation; and one of the mysteries in this inquiry is, why these particular letters were preserved so carefully, when others have disappeared. However, such as they are, the Vienna letters have now been published with scrupulous fidelity by M. von Arneth; and he has added to his volume photographs from four of them, as specimens of the Queen's