hauling out manure to cover the whole surface of thousands of acres of ground and be washed by the rains into the soil, I have thought that here must be a far greater source of deterioration to the water of creeks and rivers than the graveyards can possibly be. For here we have not only all the excrements of the people and the animals, but also the putrefying carcasses of all aborted calves, dead dogs, and cats, fowls, carried off by the 'chicken disease;' all the offals of numerous butchering establishments, where the bowels and blood are thrown into shallow broad pits where they putrefy, and in times of rain the offensive matters are washed out into the nearest stream, while the bulkier portions are afterward carted away by the farmers and spread on the fields. All over every township are large farms, each one with an immense manure heap, washed by every rain into the streams, or carried into the soil. Take, too, even a small town like Norristown, where privies are used; the houses are built over a pit a few feet deep, walled with brick. From time to time they are cleaned, the contents being hauled to some vacant lot back of the town, and covered by a thin layer of earth. The prison has about 90 inmates, and the excrement is once in twenty-four hours washed out by passing a current of water through the main pipes, and thus it is carried a few hundred yards to a small creek which empties it into the river. Think for a moment, of Manayunk, Conshohocken, and Balligomings, with their numerous factories, their dye-stuffs, and privies; all the filth and dyes passing into the streams, which is regarded as the convenient means of removing every kind of filthy and useless matters. I say if you think of all this you will probably regard the graveyards, where the bodies are deeply buried and where the water, if even loaded with noxious materials, must pass through that great filterer and deodorizer, the earth, as but a very small source of deterioration. "With kind regards, truly your friend, HIRAM CORSON." Certainly it would be difficult to describe more vividly or more tersely the manifold sources of contamination to which our water supply is exposed. But the argument against the additional danger from graveyard contamination is a little too much like that of the counsel in the famous abattoir case-in which we are glad to be able, in passing, to congratulate the Society on the firm and decided stand which it has taken in opposition to a measure which threatens so seriously to deteriorate the air of a large portion of our city -namely, that so large a number of such excessively vile and un wholesome nuisances exist in that neighborhood already, that the addition of another is not worthy of a moment's consideration. As to the actual purifying power of filtration in the case of such contamination as we are considering, the evidence at our command is rather unfavorable to its efficiency. In a review of a work by Henri de Parkville, the London Chemical News says: "How does organic matter become dangerous? The organic matter in suspension or in solution creates in the water a peculiar medium, suitable for the development of exceedingly small beings of the genus Vibrio. It is no longer mere water -it is a world of microscopic animals and plants, which are born, live, and increase with bewildering rapidity. The infusoria find in the water calcareous, magnesian, and ammoniacal salts, and their maintenance is thus secure. Drink a drop of this liquid, and you swallow millions of minute beings. But these are vibrios. There are those which are capable of setting up putrefaction in our tissues. These are our enemies; often our mortal enemies. Let water be placed in contact with organic remains capable of nourishing these malignant vibrios, and it at once becomes more dangerous than any poison. According to the researches of the late Dr. Calvert, charcoal, lime, and permanganate of potassium, contrary to the received opinion, facilitate putrefaction, and actually promote the formation of animalculæ. Charcoal, when used for the purification of polluted waters, undoubtedly absorbs into its pores offensive gases held in solution, as well as liquid coloring and flavoring matters. It can render such waters colorless and tasteless. But upon living animaculæ and their germs it is absolutely powerless. Nay, water containing a known amount of albumenoid ammonia,' when experimentally filtered over animal charcoal, has been found on analysis worse than before. Permanganate of potassium may oxidize-in fact, burn up-dead organic matter suspended or dissolved in water; but upon living organisms it is almost powerless. We have seen animalculæ remain in full life and apparent vigor for hours in water to which permanganate had been added in a large proportion. M. Davaine found that putrid blood after treatment with charcoal became more putrid than before. It is possible that the gases dissolved in the liquid hinder the development of the infusoria. The author considers carbolic, or, better still, cresylic acid, as the only agent which extirpates these animalcules." Dr. Haegler, of Basle, gives the details of an outbreak of typhoid fever in the village of Lansen, near Basle, in which fifty-seven cases occurred in the space of nine days. On investigation it was learned that two months previously there had been cases of typhoid fever in a farm house not far from the village, and that the dejections from the patient had been thrown into a little stream running through the yard or into a ditch communicating with it. This stream joined a larger one that supplied the village, and the only six families which escaped drew their water from another source. Dr. H.'s conclusion, after carefully studying the history of this epidemic, is, "That the ordinary filtration of contaminated water, by its passage through the ground, will not disinfect the water, or furnish any protection against the action of the typhoid poison." It appears then that we shall be hugging a delusive phantom of security if we trust to the media through which corpse drainage flows to deprive it of its organic impurities and lethal properties. At the present time (March 25th) the water supplied to the fifteenth, twentieth, and other wards on the northwestern part of the city, comprising an immense area and a large population, is so filthy as to be offensive to both smell and taste. In numerous instances physicians have been compelled to forbid their patients to use it. The chief engineer of the department, himself a physician, is aware of the existence of the evil and fully alive to its enormity. He attributes it to the fact that the severity of the past winter has interfered with the aëration and oxidation of the water through the influence of the sun's rays and atmospheric exposure, while just at the present moment, the accumulated filth of months is being poured down from the populous hill-sides with the melting snows. A satisfactory explanation, perhaps, but hardly a consolatory one. This excessively impure condition of the water is confined to a single section of the city. At the same moment that the twentiethward is thus afflicted, the eighth and all other wards lying in the southern section are supplied with a drinking fluid which, although highly objectionable in point of color, does not offend the palate or nose, and acts creditably under crucial chemical tests. An examination made by your Committee, with the kind assistance of Prof. McIntyre, late of Lafayette College, Easton, on the 19th of March, 1875, gave the following results: The water was drawn from a cold water office-faucet, at 1503 Spruce St. (eighth ward), and was quite clear, palatable, and inoffensive. On being brought to the boiling point, it became decidedly turbid, indicating the presence of free carbonic acid in abundance. The addition of nitrate of silver in solution to an unconcentrated specimen gave a perceptible turbidity, which did not disappear on the addition of nitric acid, showing chlorine to be present in considerable quantity. A solution of the permanganate of potassium was perhaps very slightly discolored. The morphia test indicated the presence of a minute quantity of nitric acid. Where sulphuric acid had been added to the residue after evaporation, it blackened under a gentle heat, indicating that it contained carbonaceous matter. Three days later, the Nessler test was applied to water drawn from the same faucet, without detecting the slightest trace of ammonia. The test with the solution of potassium iodide and starch added to the water previously acidulated failed to indicate the presence of nitric acid. This water could, therefore, be safely pronounced wholesome. Let us see what explanation can be given of this striking difference. It is true that it has been observed that iron pipes appear to exert a purifying influence upon water conducted through them, especially if the latter is compelled to remain for a considerable length of time in contact with their walls, but the distance between these localities is too small, and the rapidity with which the water passes is too great, to allow us to suppose that its organic impurities can have been thus eliminated. We must look for some more adequate solution. This we find in the fact that while the supply for the lower portion of the city is drawn from the extreme lower end of the dam, as far removed as possible from all sources of pollution which exist higher up the stream, that which is distributed to the up-town wards, along the Schuylkill, is obtained at least three-quarters of a mile further up. The river being between these points of its greatest breadth has an immense storage capacity, and its current is comparatively slow, thus affording opportunity for a very considerable amount of oxidation and absorption to take place. The fact is then sufficiently established that the water is more impure at the Spring Garden Works than it is at the Fairmount Works. The exact figures given by Dr. Cresson, as the result of an analysis on the 24th of July, 1874, show, as he well says, "the enormous amounts" of 97.14 lbs. of sewage to the 1,000,000 United States gallons at Fairmount. And yet the same authority tells us that "the creek emptying into this river below the inlet to the Spring Garden Water Works was, September 5th, 1873, conveying water containing 227.68 lbs. to the 1,000,000 United States gallons, whilst Mantua Creek on the western bank was conveying the drainage from slaughter-houses killing a much larger number of animals than that upon the eastern shore." Now, as water does not run up hill, it is not to be sup posed that these individual sources of contamination are responsible for the foulness of the water at a point higher up the stream. We must look still above. To do so we take from table A of Dr. Cresson's report the results of an examination made February 9th, 1872, at a time when no water had passed over the dam for eight days previous, and very little for fifteen days previous. Reducing to grains to the United States gallon, we find at— The water then, in passing from the first point to the last, has gained a hundredth of a grain of albuminoid ammonia. Between these two points lies West Laurel Hill, with its thousands of decomposing bodies and its natural drainage directly toward the river. We do not wish to be understood as implying that there are not other and greater nuisances on this part of the dam, but this must be seriously estimated as one of them, and a most objectionable one. Indeed, cemeteries are especially mentioned in Dr. Cresson's report as probable sources of contamination to this stream. The following figures from the same table bear damaging witness to the steady and rapid deterioration of our water supply. Belmont Inlet (grains to United States gallon.) 0.01701 0.01274 . 0.12747 1152 July 24th, 1874 Thus we see that in two years the amount of free ammonia has increased about fifteen times, of albuminoid ammonia and sewage about six times. We conclude our presentation of this somewhat nauseating topic with a brief but pregnant and wholly reliable statement from the report just quoted, which is almost enough to lead us to reconsider our decision on the abattoir question, and by contrast to regard Mr. Thomas Scott in the somewhat unusual role of an Angel of Light: "Into this pool" (that is, Fairmount Dam), "from both sides of the river is poured an enormous quantity of animal refuse from slaughter-houses, in which I am informed not less than 25 per cent. of the whole number of animals needed for our market are killed." BENJAMIN LEE, Chairman. M. O'HARA, R. BURNS. VOL. X. 49 |