The Grand Junction Water Company was authorised by act of Parliament, in 1798, but was not undertaken until 1811, when a subsidiary act having been passed, inthe persons who were corporating separately from the Grand Junction Canal Company, to construct the water works, the scheme, amid many difficulties, of which the chief was want of money, was carried out, and a sum of 312,000 was expended therein. At first the supply of water was derived from the Grand Junction Canal, which was fed from the rivers Colne and Brent, and from a large reservoir of nearly 100 acres, filled

by the various streams of the vale of Ruislip, in the north-western part of Middlesex. The quality of this supply was complained of, and, moreover, as the sphere of operations of the company was extended, the quantity abstracted from the canal became a source of inconvenience to its trade. An effort was made to substitute the waters of the Regent's Canal for those of the Grand Junction, but the quantity was quite insufficient, and therefore the unfailing Thames was resorted to, and from its exuberant bosom has been drawn ever since 1820, the whole supply of these works. Their steam engines, two of 100 horse power each, are erected at Chelsea, between the Royal Hospital and the Chelsea Water Works. From mains laid into the channelway of the river, they pump up water into three spacious basins, at Paddington, each of different dimensions and elevations. The north reservoir, containing 153,465 hogsheads of water, is 91 feet 10 inches above high water mark of the Thames. The south has a like relative altitude of 85 feet 10 inches, and will hold 139,921 hogsheads, while the