172 Kansas Academy of Science. 



proven, that the users of the water from the well were drinking the- 

 diluted sewage of their neighbor's cesspool. 



It is true that this sewage would for a considerable period of 

 time be to a greater or less extent purified, that is to say, would not 

 contain any pathogenic organism; yet as time goes on the degree 

 of pollution, as well as the area of pollution, gradually increases, 

 until it would seem to be entirely possible for diseaee to be trans- 

 mitted in this manner. At all events there are few of us who have 

 the desire to drink the sewage of our neighbors, notwithstanding 

 we may have the scientific assurance that it is perfectly harmless. 



Another illustration of this sort of pollution occurred at the sugar 

 refinery at Garden City. Tons and tons of beet pulp were heaped 

 upon the ground, for the want of a better place of storage, and 

 was allowed to remain for a number of months, much of it under- 

 going fermentation and decomposition. In the spring this beet 

 pulp was disposed of and the ground thoroughly cleansed of all of 

 the pulp. Yet for a number of months afterwards a series of wells, 

 which had been constructed by the sugar company at a point several 

 hundred feet east of the place used as a storage for the beet pulp, 

 and which were being pumped at the rate of several million gallons 

 of water per day, continued to throw off the vilest odors of sulphu- 

 reted hydrogen gas, and deposited in the troughs which conveyed 

 the water to the factory a thick, heavy layer of organic matter. 



Another method of pollution of wells and springs is through 

 faults or fissures of an impervious strata carrying the ground- water 

 supply, or through which a head of water draining a polluted basin 

 or area finds its way to the surface in the form of a spring through 

 a fissure. 



There is at least one example of this kind in Kansas. A certain 

 city has for a number of years boasted upon the purity of its public 

 supply, because, forsooth, it was spring water. Bacteriological tests 

 of this water on a number of occasions showed it contaminated with 

 colon bacillus. Careful investigation by the engineer and secre- 

 tary of the State Board of Health revealed the fact that this spring 

 was, in the main, the outlet from extensive basins and swamps lo- 

 cated near by, and which came to the surface through a large fissure 

 of the overlying rock. 



Literature records a number of extensive epidemics of typhoid 

 fever due to these underground breaks or fissures. In one instance, 

 in Switzerland, an epidemic of typhoid fever broke out in a certain 

 village, and over 17 per cent of the inhabitants were stricken. The 

 entire village was supplied from waters of a spring. A painstaking 



