City of York : report on the state of York, in reply to questions circulated by the Health of Towns Commission / By T. Laycock, M.D., Physician to the York Dispensary.

  • Laycock, Thomas, 1812-1876.
Date:
[1844]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: City of York : report on the state of York, in reply to questions circulated by the Health of Towns Commission / By T. Laycock, M.D., Physician to the York Dispensary. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    CITY OF YORK. REPORT on the State of York, in Reply to the Questions circulated by the Health of Towns Commission. By T. Laycock, M.D., Physician to the York Dispensary. York is situate in the centre of an extensive vale of that name, in north latitude 53° 48, west longitude 4° 19. It lies between the rivers Ouse and Foss, immediately above their junction. Both are tidal rivers and navigable. The tide, however, is pre- vented from rising so far as the city by a lock (Naburn Lock), about five miles distant. The summer level of the Ouse, (as measured on July 1st, 1842,) is 16 feet above the datum plane of mean tide; that of the Foss is 23 feet above the same plane ; a lock just above its junction with the Ouse, keeping it at this higher level. The geology of the district is explained in the following letter addressed to me, by the Reverend William Vernon Harcourt, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S,, Canon Residentiary of York Cathedral, &c., &c., and Chairman of the York Sanatory Sub-committee.* Dear Sir, I shall be happy to contribute such assistance as lies in my power, to the labours which you have so laudably undertaken, by stating to vou the views I entertain of the waters and drainage of York. The water available in York for different purposes is supplied from three sources; 1st, from the river Ouse; 2nd, from wells which vary in depth from about 12 to 40 feet; 3rd, from borings carried down to a depth of from 350 to 380 feet from the surface. In the superficial wells, the water is found and stands at different altitudes; in the deep borings the chief supply is found below the depth of 300 feet; the water rises in distant borings to about the same level, and that level I estimate at from 15 to 20 feet above the common level of the river Ouse. The water of some of the shallow wells lies at a higher elevation than this. Thus, the bottom of the well in front of the north-west door of the Minster is 12 feet 3 inches deep from the surface of the ground; and the ground is, I believe, about 32 feet above the mean level of the river. The supply of water from the artesian wells is so copious, that the pump of one of them, as its proprietor, Mr. Nash, informs me, has furnished 100 gallons per minute, for 10 months together, without intermission or diminution, working day and night. The use of the supply is to serve the boilers of steam-engines, the rapid incrustration of which with an ochreo-ealcareous deposit, shows the water to be ill adapted for ordinary purposes. As no analysis has yet been made of this deep water, I have thought it worth while to examine it, and find its constituents such as may perhaps render it serviceable for medicinal use, since it contains, together with a small proportion of bicarbonate of iron, a mixture of Epsom and Glauber’s salts, amounting to 48-3 grains in the gallon, that is to say, 33’9 grains of the crystals of sulphate of mag- nesia, and 14’4 grains of the crystals of sulphate of soda. Mr. J. Spence has published an account of the principal ingredients in the waters of 20 of the superficial wells in York,f from which it appears that of these only five contain any sulphate of magnesia, and that in that which contains the largest quantity of it he did not find one-third of the quantity which I find in the deep springs, and this unaccompanied with any sulphate of soda. Mr. Spence has also analysed the water of the river Ouse, and has found in it little more than one- fiftieth of the sulphate of magnesia found by me in the deep springs, and no sulphate of soda. These chemical differences concur with the differences of level at which the waters of the superficial and the deep wells are met with, and at which they stand, to show that they have little, if any, connection with each other, or with the water of the Ouse. The causes of the difference in the quality and ingre- dients of the three classes of water, as well as of the superiority of the lower springs in volume of water, will be found in the geological conditions under which they are collected. The section of the beds on which the city of York stands presented by the borings of the artesian well at Mr. Swale’s factory in Walmgate, is as follows:— Feet. 1. Clay and gravel 18 2. Sand, fine river, light coloured, darker 60 3. Sandstone rock, fine grained, white ...... 1 4. Loose sand 1 5. Sandstone rock, as above . . . . , . . . . 58 6. Clay, blue, (and water,) a thin seam 0 7. Sandstone rock, as above ... .... 62 8. Clay (and water), a thin seam 0 9. Sandstone rock, as above .178 378 This sandstone rock belongs to the beds of the new red sandstone formation, which crop out in a low line of undulating hills along the western margin of the basin of the vale of York, passing in a south-easterly direction from Rainton by Borough Bridge and Ouseburn to Green Hammerton, and emerging again from beneath the diluvial covering of that basin at Bilbrough, within a few miles of York. The immediate substratum of the soil in this line over a considerable tract of country, con- sists of these porous beds, and the water which falls or flows down upon it passes through them, between the seams of clay which alternate with the sandstone, along the dip of the strata, eastward to York ; it is thus carried beneath the diluvium below the bed of the Ouse, and is dammed up under ♦The following: gentlemen constituted this Committee:—The Lord Mayor; the Recorder; Alderman Hudson; Rev. W. V. Harcourt; T.Barstow, Esq.; G. Goldie, Esq., M.D. ; W. L. Newman, Esq., Actuary; S. Tuke, Esq., Merchant; C. Williams, Esq., Surgeon ; B. Dodsworth, Esq., Surgeon ; G. Brown, Esq.; T. Laycock, M.T)., Secretary. t Mr. Spence’s analyses are given in the Appendix to this Report, Tables 3 and 4. B