282 American Fisheries Society 



waters extremely dangerous for live stock to go near. Straw- 

 board and sugar beet factories, slaughter houses and packing 

 plants, creameries, leather-board and tankage plants, tanneries 

 and city sewage systems, all were putting into the streams their 

 millions of gallons of pollution every day. Pollution of this 

 kind is organic in character, and where it is in excess of what 

 nature can take care of by self-purification, it is just as deadly 

 as an acid pollution. I soon had all known pollutions placed 

 for my purposes in two classes, acid and organic. 



I discarded the use of calcium oxide, sulphate of iron, alum, 

 etc., as being too expensive for the treatment of industrial 

 waste. In my efforts to find something to cheapen the 

 treatment of trade waste, and not work a hardship on the 

 manufacturers, I found a clay marl deposit on the Kibler 

 farm, near Circleville, Ohio, of which I could use from 

 seventy-five to ninety-five per cent and get better results 

 than I could get from any other chemical. This marl used 

 in combination with any of the well known agents for 

 coagulation will, when applied to any organic pollution, 

 cause a very rapid precipitation of all organic solids out of 

 the water to the bottom of a tank or vat. It renders the 

 water very clear, and where such water flows into a stream 

 the fish will live and do well in it. I also found that water, 

 treated by this process, will not ferment afterwards, or 

 have any odor to it, indicating that everything of a harm- 

 ful nature is removed from the water. This same marl 

 will also neutralize an acid pollution and make it harmless. 



I have here a number of samples of polluted water,) 

 taken from manufacturing plants, before it reached the 

 streams and became diluted with other water. I will treat 

 each one separately, giving you its history and how it is 

 formed. [Tests were made as the speaker proceeded.] 



1. Coal mine pollution. Copperas water from a coal 

 mine is very deadly to all fish life, being acid in its nature. 

 When first formed in a coal mine it is harmless, but as it 

 flows through the old workings of a mine before being 



