39 



[ Lesley. 



among its manifold and marvelous properties not only dynamic 

 power, but attributes regenerative of vitality, and with these two 

 it is capable, if the experiments of Dr. Griffiths are to be relied 

 upon, of killing the bacillus tuberculosis in the living human 

 body, in case the lesions of the disease have not seriously im- 

 paired electric conductivity in the parts morbidly invaded ; and 

 capable also of contributing to restore healthy function to them, 

 and thence normal structure. It remains for physicians to make 

 the essay here indicated at no expense or risk whatever. If the 

 treatment prove to have any virtue in it, it would apply to other 

 bacterial diseases besides tuberculosis. 



In regard to the essay with reference to the sterilization of 

 drinking-water, experiments could be made at no great labor and 

 expense compared with the vast interests at stake in a* large city. 

 Through microscopic tests would soon be set at rest the question 

 as to whether to any, and if to any, to what extent germs could, 

 by the means described, be destroyed in city water, and scrutiny 

 of the health of the city, within the lines especially of certain 

 diseases, through comparison of present with past records, would 

 in successive years have its own independent and conclusive tale 

 to tell. I pledge Philadelphia prospectively in a bumper of pure 

 water more worthy of celebration than the best Falernian wine. 



Obituary Notice of P. W. Sheafer. By J. P. Lesley. 

 (Read before the American PhilosopJiical Society, April 3, 1891.) 



Peter Wearich Sheafer was born at Wiconisco, in Dauphin county, Pa., 

 March 31, 1819. His father, Henry Sheafer, was afterwards President of 

 the Lykens Valley Railroad Company, and Superintendent of the Lykens 

 Valley Coal Company, mining the finest quality of anthracite coal, at the 

 west end of the Southern Anthracite Coal field. The discovery of the 

 Lykens valley coal bed in the body of the Pottsville Conglomerate was 

 one of the astonishing incidents of Pennsylvania geology, and enabled the 

 Sheafers, father and son, to establish a great trade in anthracite coal upon 

 the line of the Susquehanna river as far as Baltimore. 



Peter Sheafer was engaged at various times in his long professional life 

 in following the outcrop of this intercon glomerate coal around the edges 



