Paolo Frisi "A Treatise on River and Torrents: with The Method of Regulating Their Course and Channels." (Longman Hurst Rees Orme and Brown, London 1818); includes folding map and folding plan, signed inside of front cover " E M Richards, 32 Mall Waterford May 1844". Evan Mathew Richards - from his 1880 obituary: "...it has removed one from our midst who for the past quarter of a century has taken an active interest in almost every event of a local nature, and who has done no little in making Swansea the Swansea of to-day. Some five-and-twenty or thirty years ago the town and district started on the commercial career which it has since so successfully maintained. Mr. Evan Richards was then a young man of keen perception, sound judgment, and dogged determination and energy...Mr. Evan M. Richards, whose death we now deplore, worked hard and indefatigably with the other gentlemen we have named, in the successful prosecution of almost all our public works, and has thus left an impression on local history which long years alone will efface... He was the third son of the late Mr. Richard Richards of Belle Vue, a builder of considerable local repute. He had not the advantage of a collegiate or classical education. In his early days colleges and schools were neither so numerous nor so valued as now; but Mr. Richards was fairly educated, and was possessed fortunately of much good common sense and judgment; and in the exercise of this gift in after life he proved the truth of the axiom that "an ounce of common sense is better than a pound of Greek or Latin." ...Mr. Richards began to manifest great interest in the progress and welfare of his native town and he was elected by the burgesses as a member of the Corporation. In this capacity, his sound judgment practical ability, and determination opened up for him more extended spheres of usefulness. Few, if any questions of the day were then discussed, or works of a public character initiated without Mr. Richards taking a leading and active part therein...Richards, more than any other man, is responsible for the supply of water which we now possess... There were but few men in those days whose minds Sufficiently grasped the future of the town...to undertake the great expense and responsibility of bringing the Lliw stream, nine miles off, into the town by means of conduits. Mr. Richards and a few other present gentlemen, however, knew fully well a town could not progress in a sanitary or manufacturing point of view without an abundant supply of fresh water for domestic and trade purposes. They therefore fought long and hard for the practical embodiment views, and ultimately carried the Bill...Again, thanks to an efficient system of sewerage, and an abundant supply of water, the town and district have enjoyed a happy immunity from many of those epidemic dishes which have been so fatally rife in other places not blessed with such advantages...The men of mature age, who have witnessed and been associated with the rise and progress of the town for the past quarter of a century can alone value the labours of Mr. Richards and his earlier contemporaries...What he set his mind upon to do, that he did, and he had left his mark upon Swansea. Swansea was indebted to him for her Water Works, and her progress in sanitary matters was due in a great measure to him. In carrying on the great public works, he informed himself of what was possible to he done, and what was possible was done for Swansea." Irrefutably part of the history of Swansea, Wales, Richards clearly used this volume as part of his education and there are many manuscript additions in the margins including diagrams, drawings and sketches.