Responding to the initiative of their President, the Prince of Wales, the Society of Arts organised three meetings on National Water Supply, from 1878 to 1884. Since the early years of the nineteenth century, the issue of water supply had been examined by numerous Commissions and Committees, but they had failed to recommend any course of action leading to a comprehensive scheme. At the first Congress, in May 1878, twenty-four contributions were received in response to a call for views on how a national scheme might be implemented. It was agreed that a lack of information, was holding back action and a resolution was passed asking Government to establish a Commission to collect data on such things as rainfall, underground water and river flows. At a second Conference, in May the following year, the Society offered medals for dividing England and Wales into Water Supply Districts, receiving twelve submissions of which two were awarded silver medals. The submission of Frederick Toplis proposed a structure re...

中文翻译：

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国家供水，地质学家和工程师之间的争论以及艺术社团的作用

为了响应威尔士亲王主席的倡议，艺术协会于1878年至1884年组织了三次关于国家供水的会议。自19世纪初以来，许多委员会已审议了供水问题。和委员会，但他们没有建议采取任何能导致全面计划的行动方案。在1878年5月的第一届国会上，收到了二十四份捐款，以回应人们对如何实施国家计划的意见。人们一致认为，缺乏信息正在阻止行动，并通过了一项决议，要求政府建立一个委员会来收集有关降雨，地下水和河流流量等方面的数据。在次年五月的第二次会议上，该协会提供了将英格兰和威尔士划分为供水区的奖章，共收到十二份意见书，其中两份获得了银质奖章。弗雷德里克·托普利斯（Frederick Toplis）的来文提出了一个结构调整方案。