Water and Coal Supply.—The _water_ used in the metropolis is chiefly supplied by the Thames, and by an artificial channel called the _New River_, which enters on the north side of the metropolis. The water is naturally good and soft. The spots at which it is raised from the Thames used to be within the bounds of the metropolis, at no great distance from the mouths of common sewers; but it is now obtained from parts of the river much higher up, and undergoes a very extensive filtration. Nine companies are concerned in the supply of water,—viz., the _New River_, _East London_, _Southwark and Vauxhall_, _West Middlesex_, _Lambeth_, _Chelsea_, _Grand Junction_, _Kent_, and _Hampstead Water Companies_. Some of the works, within the last few years, constructed by these companies, up the river, are very fine. Returns furnished to the Registrar-General by the London Water Companies shewed that the average daily supply of water for all purposes to the London population, during the month of May, 1870, was 107,540,811 gallons, of which it is estimated the supply for domestic purposes amounted to about 88,381,700 gallons, or 26 gallons per day per head of population. The metropolis is supplied with _coal_ principally from the neighbourhood of Newcastle, but partly also from certain inland counties; the import from the latter being by railway. Newcastle coal is preferred. It arrives in vessels devoted exclusively to the trade; and so many and so excessive are the duties and profits affecting the article, that a ton of coal, which can be purchased at Newcastle for 6s. or 7s., costs, to a consumer in London, from 22s. to 27s. The quantity of coal brought to London annually much exceeds 5,000,000 tons, of which considerably more than 2,000,000 come by railway. The wholesale dealings in this commodity are managed chiefly at the _Coal Exchange_, a remarkable building just opposite Billingsgate. [Picture: Smithfield Market]