286 Recent Progress in Sanitary Science. 



these waters. Three years ago alarmists declared that, in a year or two, 

 the most serious results would follow, if the inhabitants persisted in their 

 use. So far is this from being the case, that housekeepers, dealers in fish 

 and meat, and medical practitioners, have found less fault with the Pas- 

 saic water this summer than in previous seasons. In fact, there has been 

 much less popular complaint during this summer, of the water of the 

 Passaic, than there has been of that of the Croton Aqueduct. This is a 

 fair statement drawn from the experience, not of one, but of many of us. 

 And to make it complete, it should be added that there have been times, 

 as in mid-summer of 1872, when to quote from the Report to the Board 

 of Public Works of Jersey City, the water " was highly offensive to both 

 the smell and taste, was turbid from the presence of great numbers of 

 microscopic vegetable and animal organisms, and when proper chemical 

 tests revealed a shocking degree of contamination by organic matter." 



Another case of river-pollution familiar to most of us, is that of the 

 Schuylkill River by the sewage and refuse of Manayunk, and other 

 manufacturing towns located a short distance above Philadelphia. So 

 imminent did the danger appear, that in view of the vast multitudes 

 whose presence at the Centennial Exposition was anticipated, the au- 

 thorities of Philadelphia appointed a Commission to decide whether the 

 Schuylkill waters should be condemned. Most unfortunately, the Com- 

 mission failed to give an authoritative decision, and while it devoted 

 a preponderate share of- its Final Report to statements and arguments 

 illustrative of the fatal dangers resulting from drinking polluted streams, 

 the Schuylkill included, it recommended an extension of the present 

 means of water-supply. In truth, the annual rate of mortality for New 

 York is 29 per thousand, while in Philadelphia it is 23 per thousand; and 

 during the excessive heats of last summer, while Philadelphia has been 

 crowded to the extent of two hundred thousand people above its own 

 population, no active disease has been fairly attributable to the Schuylkill 

 water. 



It will be hardly necessary to speak of the general use of the waters of 

 the Thames by the people of London, after alluding to that of the Schuyl- 

 kill, which is represented to be the more polluted of the two streams. 



Now as to the information afforded by chemical analyses on this point. 

 The waters of the Passaic have been repeatedly analyzed, and samples 

 taken from the Reservoir at Belleville have shown but a very slight 

 increase of putrescible organic matter over that of samples taken above 

 the High Falls at Paterson. Moreover it is not at all improbable that 

 this slight amount of contamination was due to the partial influence of 

 the reflux tide from Newark. In other words, the waters of the Passaic 

 as collected 14 miles below Paterson, have returned to about the same 

 composition as they had before receiving the sewage of this large manu- 

 facturing town. 



This unexpected result has a striking parallel in the case of another 

 American river, that of the Blackstone in the state of Massachusetts. 

 This stream flows past the city of Worcester, receiving all its sewage, 



