M 103
The following Table gives the least satisfactory figures for some of the principal determinations made on each of the various supplies during the year:-
Supply. Colour. Transparency. Free Alb. Ammonia. Anmonia. Oxygen abs. pH. Value. Lovibond units Parts per 100,000 Aberdeen 8 18 cm 0.0022 0.0061 0.073 7.0 Elliot 35.7 55 cm 0.0011 0.0061 0.035 6.8 West Point 5.7 100 cm 0.0011 0.0061 0.033 8.5 Albany 33.7 60 cm 0.0016 0.0055 0.026 6.8 Bowen Road 11.4 90 cm 0.0028 0.0055 0.043 6.9 Eastern 35.5 52 cm 0.0055 0.0061 0.039 8.0 Shaukiwan 4.6 100 cm 0.0055 0.0110 0.011 6.8 Chai Wan 4.1 100 cm 0.0033 0.0050 0.060 7.2 Kowloon 4.1 100 cm 0.0011 0.0069 0.035 6.7 Shing Mun 5.2 100 cm 0.0011 0.0055 0.015In connection with the control of the chlorination of the public supplies and to meet allegations of a chlorine taste remaining in the water, more than 1,200 samples from taps were taken during the year and the free chlorine determined. In only 31 per cent of these was any chlorine detected, and the highest concentration found in any sample was 0.6 part per million.
CRIMINAL WORK.
The electrical conductivity method has been used in connection with several suspected drowning cases during the year. In May a specimen of thoracic fluid from a body at the Kowloon Mortuary showed by this method the presence of 32 per cent of sea-water. In January the dead body of a man was found in a nullah and it was suspected that he might have been either gassed with coal gas or drowned. The conductivity test showed that the blood was normal and that no drowning had taken place and the absence of gassing was proved by the palladium chloride test, an analysis of the blood gases, and a spectrographic examination with the wave-length spectrograph. In another case of drowning at the Kowloon Mortuary, the differential chloride method was used and proved that the drowning had occurred in fresh water and not in sea-water.