METEOROLOGY — WATER. 17 



" Previous investigations of rural water supplies have been more or less 

 unsatisfactory, due eitlier to tlie local or fragmentary character of the investi- 

 gations or to the use of a single method in studying the supplies in question. 



"^Exhaustive data upon 79 carefully selected and typical rural water sup- 

 plies show that 20 were good and, usually because of careless or ignorant 

 management, that 59 were polluted. 



" Of the polluted wells, 11 are so located that even extreme care would not 

 make them safe; 10 are poorly located, but improvements in the protection 

 fi-om surface wash and infiltration would make them safe; 25 are bad only 

 because of poor surface protection and could easily be made safe; 1 is polluted 

 from unknown, probably distant, sources. One spring supi)ly is polluted because 

 of poor surface protection and could easily be made safe. The rivers, surface 

 reservoirs, and cisterns are polluted, and it is doubtful whether satisfactory 

 supplies can be secured for farm use from such sources. Where their use is 

 necessary, water for drinking should be boiled or otherwise disinfected. 



" During this investigation 23 of the farms examined showed a record of 

 typhoid fever. On 11 of these farms it was found impossible to locate the 

 source of infection, on 2 farms possible sources were determined, while on 10 

 the data seemed to locate definitely the source of infection. The water supplies 

 upon 5 of these farms were not polluted and the infection was traceable to out- 

 side sources ; the water supplies of the remaining 18 farms were polluted. 



" The protection of farm supplies by common-sense methods obvious to any- 

 one who will try to discover the dangers incident to bis own water supply 

 would render safe the majority of the farm supplies which are now polluted. 

 Exhaustive studies of rui-al conditions at the present time, therefore, are war- 

 ranted only in connection with epidemiological studies." 



Typhoid fever in Ohio with some observations on outbreaks at various 

 places, H. M. Platter (Quart. Bui. Ohio Bd. Health, 1 (HJO!)), Xo. 3, pp. 18-',- 

 190). — In view of an unusual increase in typhoid fever in Ohio during the sum- 

 mer of 1909, investigations were made as to the extent and causes of the 

 outbreaks. The unusual pi'evalence of rural typhoid shown by these investiga- 

 tions is attributed to a variety of causes, including the spending of vacations in 

 infected communities, the wide interchange of milk and raw food supplies, and 

 contaminated water supplies. 



"A great number of farm wells are contaminated from the surface. Under 

 such circumstances if a member of the family acquires typhoid fever away 

 from home and the most scrupulous care is not taken of the discharges from 

 the beginning of illness the water supply becomes contaminated with the 

 typhoid poison and, if the patient be in the family of a milk or vegetable pro- 

 ducer, [such contamination] will be followed by other cases not only in the 

 family, but by epidemics of no mean proportions in the city consuming his 

 supply." 



A study of the bacteriolog'y of drinking water supplies in tropical climates, 

 W. W. Clemesha, I. S. AiYAR, and V. G. Mudaliyar (Madras: Govt., 1909, pp. 

 3.',6; rev. in Lancet [London], 1909, II, No. 15, pp. 1076, J077).— This book is 

 based largely upon studies of the water supplies of Madras. India. 



The purification of some textile and other factory wastes, H. Stabler and 

 G. H. Pratt (U. S. Geoh Survey, Water-Supply Paper No. 235, pp. 76).— "This 

 paper gives a brief outline of the processes of scouring wool, bleaching cotton 

 yarn and cloth, dyeing cotton yarn, and manufacturing oleomargarine, glue, and 

 fertilizer. The waste waters of these processes are considered in detail and 

 means of purifying them are discussed at length, special prominence being given 

 to the investigations of the authors. These investigations . . . consisted of the 

 determination of the effects of special industrial wastes on streams, their 



