RIVER POLLUTION.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 262, 14 March 1874, Page 3

RIVER POLLUTION.

Since the time when rivers ran through Eden up to the last flood.that swelled the torrents of Otago, water in quantity, and water in quality, has been to all animated" beings—and to the human family no lessso than the rest, a question of the most vital importance Its ebb, or its flow, in excess, means death—it may be from dearth; it may be from surfeit. Its purity or impurity is, to individuals and to collections of individuals, not less vitally important. Water is the primary agent in mating life passable ; and the countless modes and modulations ot which it is capable produces a corresponding number of ever-changing conditions in the whole of the features of the earth, and unimaginable billions of its inhabitants, either vegetable or animal; so that not only our existence, but every condition of animal health—and, therefore, happiness —depends upon the quality and quantity of the aqueous element at cur disposal. What a vast importance is attached to the acquirement of a portion of the earth's surface by citizens and legislators in all civilised countries, and how little is said' or done in reference to the more valuableelement of water. How comes it that in this country, where we are laying the, foundations of young institutions, and laving down lines of demarcation, which" will ? define the boundaries of private and public right hereafter, and so mark out the habits of the people of the future —thatour lawmakers have not thought of theincorisistency of selling the rights to anyindividual to lock up from access any water frontages, or to leave to the chance of judicial opinion—it might be, from an interested point of view—the appointingof the mode and extent to which streams: may be polluted by individuals or parties of men ?

- The \Faerewhenua'question of riverpollution may yet do mucli by directing -the minds of thinking- men to riparian rights in their legal and equitable hearings upon parties affected by theiraction. It is said—and I firmly believe it —that actions done under the impulse of" the basest motives are sometimes overruled,_by a beneficent Providence, to pro--duce good results. Let us hope that the .case above alluded to may prove an illustration of the truth of the statement. Now, it would be interesting to know what meaning is attached to the word pollution when applied to the water of a large stream. We have heard of_waterbeing " soiled," " dirtied," " muddied,"" "fouled," and "quite thickened" by an unusual increase of incessant natural operations ; but the word pollution is not in general use for the expression "of any of the ideas conveyed by the words above quoted. And, suppose we press'it. into service to represent those ideas/ what word shall we find to represent the* fol- . lowing cases:—Sxippose we we're taking- , in water, for a voyage at sea, from the Thames below London. In the state in. which it is there to be found —thick with, countless unmentionable ingredients, "so that, when seen through a powerful lens,_ it looks like dense sewerage—is that water polluted ? Again, suppose a lot of moderately grassed country—such as may be found, for instance, on the Maerewlienna. —stocked heavily with sheep (which may or may not be suffering with scab, fluke, or foot-rot), and covered for three consecutive months with their droppings and diseased matter, and that a heavy and welcome thunder shower came while the ground was hard as a board with! the drought, sweeping these countless atoms of filth and infection into tbe water-' courses —what other. nominative can be applied to that state of-the water but pollution? And yet, again, when sheep, previously dressed with arsenical preparations, are washed by thousands in the stream thus impregnated and charged with poison, in what other state can water be said to be unless polluted ? Th^t/: it may not be muddy nor soiled to the ""•'- , -— sight, £n(d - £ejL-be - terribly polluted, all must admrtPJ but to say that water was polluted by its own mechanical action on the soils of the pjunttry--through which / it passesjyould," inrb.ur Opinion,' l)£;Jayjsethe wo^l^ap'a'r.fe'" fmm'"/ ; rte-;.^e3^fai^ ; '"r€i ceivcd meaning. I vwll be pmchs£ed »uh.the ' expected that €IOO \ull be obtained c j*