Miscellaneous Papers. 173 



investigation revealed the following facts : On the other side of the 

 ridge was a little valley which when irrigated always increased the 

 flow of the spring on the village side of the mountain. It was found 

 that a peasant living in the valley had returned from a distant city 

 sick with the fever, and that the water in a brook in which his 

 clothes had been washed and into which the slops of the house had 

 been cast had been used to irrigate the meadow. Of course the 

 polluted water filtered through the surface of the soil and joined 

 the underground water to go to no one knew where. In order to 

 determine if it could be possible that this spring was fed by the 

 underground waters of a valley a mile away, a large quantity of salt 

 was thrown into a hole dug into the valley to a water-bearing vein 

 of sand, and in a few hours the waters of the spring became very 

 salty, and thus was established the connection between the irrigated 

 valley and the spring. 



To conclude that because water is bright, clear and sparkling, 

 that therefore it is wholesome, is highly erroneous. The very gases 

 of decomposition may make a sparkling water, and but little filtra- 

 tion is necessary under ordinary conditions to remove turbidity. 

 Therefore, shallow wells or springs located in densely populated 

 areas, or in loose, porous soil, or near to known and evident sources 

 of pollution, must be always under suspicion as to its purity and 

 wholesomeness, regardless of its physical appearance. 



Another source of pollution of wells and springs, and which, after 

 all, is probably the most common, and certainly the most dangerous, 

 is that of direct surface contamination, in which the polluted sur- 

 face water finds its way into the well or spring without the purify- 

 ing filtration of intervening layers of soil. 



In this connection I desire to quote a paragraph which recently 

 appeared in the pamphlet issued by the Merchants' Association 

 Committee of New York which had undertaken the investigation 

 of the cause of typhoid fever in that state : 



"Great cities are developing some sort of a sanitary conscience. 

 Farmers and country districts have as yet little or none. Bad as our city 

 water often is, and defective as our system of sewage, they cannot for a 

 moment compare in deadliness with the most unheavenly pair of twins— the 

 shallow well and the vault privy. A more ingenious combination for the 

 dissemination of typhoid than this precious couple could hardly have been 

 devised. The innocent householder sallies forth, and at an appropriate dis- 

 tance from his cot digs two holes, one about thirty feet deep, the other 

 about four. Into the shallower he throws his excreta, while upon the sur- 

 face of the ground he flings abroad his household waste from the back stoop. 

 The gentle rain from heaven washes these various products down into the 

 soil and percolates gradually into the deeper hole. When the interesting 



