44 



Of the '.M piililic s])rinfrs ."»!> were of fjood (|u;ilit.v, 18 were h.id and 17 

 doubtful. 



Of the 147 iioiid siiiiplies, !t4 were .t^'ood. 2'.', Icid and '40 duubtful. 



One thousand, three hundred and seventy-seven samples of privjite 

 water supplies were taken from deep wells. Of this number 1.001 were 

 good. IGO were unqualifiedly bad and 12<> were doubtful, in other words, 

 about 20 per cent, of the deep well waters were either of bad or doubtful 

 quality. 



Of the 3,057 shallow wells examined, 1.331 were good, 1,391 were bad 

 and 335 were doubtful or rather more than 5G per cent, of all the shallow 

 well waters examined \A'ere unfit for drinking aud domestic i)uri)Oses. 



Out of the mass of data collected, we are now able to deternnne with 

 such a degree of accuracy that our statement is not a hypothesis but a 

 fact that the well suijply of the cities and towns of Indiana is not only to 

 be viewed with suspicion. Imt in rather more than 50 per cent, of the cases, 

 pronounced polluted. 



If such a statement had ln-en made the first or second year of nnr 

 work, it would have undoubtedly been pointed out that the waters an.-il- 

 yzed did not I'epresent average conditions and that the samples sent in 

 were from wells suspected of being impure, and that while many of these 

 samples did prove to l)e i>olluted, by far the greater number of wells were 

 pure and safe. I>ut as year after year we have tabulated the results of 

 our work, we have noticed the very singular fact that our results varied 

 very little indeed. In fact the percentage of bad and doubtful well waters 

 in the year 1012 is .almost exactly the i)ercentage reported the first year 

 of our work in llKMi. It is impossible to believe that the health officers 

 after studying the \Aell supplies in their community for many years, are 

 still sending in only the worst waters, or that the individual owner is not 

 asking for an .-uialysis save when he suspects the ]>urity of his sui>p]y. I 

 am convinced that of the two million wells furnishing water to the citizens 

 of Indiana, at least one million are not funiisliing pure water, but a water 

 contaminated liy tlie wastes of the home and coinmnnity. Of 4,0.50 wells 

 examine<l in the last few years, 3,051 have been classified as shallow wells, 

 and 1,008 as deep wells. This classification is not perfect for it is fre- 

 (|ucntly inipossii)le to get dal.a snrticiently ad(X|uate to i)lace a well in its 

 Iiroi»cr cliiss. We classify all dug wells as shallow wells, and all 

 driv(Mi wells as shallow wells when it is evident that the well 



