1905 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



731 



moved by a chemical process. If I remem- 

 ber correctly, the only chemicals used are 

 sal soda and lime. It seems a little funny 

 that they should use more lime in order to 

 get rid of the lime already in the water; but 

 our expert chemists understand their busi- 

 ness, no doubt. A gasoline-engine mixes 

 the chemicals and distributes them properly 

 through the water. Not only the chemicals 

 but the operating machinery here used is so 

 inexpensive that this beautiful water is at 

 the present time used for sprinkling lawns 

 and streets, operating water-closets, and for 

 a variety of purposes throughout the city. 

 In case of a fire, if it is only a moderate one 

 the pure water is used to extinguish it; but 

 if the fire threatens to be a serious one, the 

 engineer of the waterworks can turn on the 

 water from the big reservoir. When this 

 happens it will take a little time to run this 

 water out of the pipes after the fire, but it 

 does not occasion much inconvenience. In a 

 city having the moral tone of Oberlin they 

 do not have many fires— at least they ought 

 not to have many. 



Let me digress a little. Years ago we 

 collected rainwater from the roofs of one of 

 our factories, for drinking purposes for the 

 hands; but we found it an expense and a 

 hindrance to provide ice for said drinking- 

 water for 100 or more people. We had a 

 well of hard water that was very nice and 

 cool, but a good many could not drink it. 

 Now, to make this rain water cool enough 

 to drink I ran a pipe down into the well and 

 up again so as to cool the water in its pas- 

 sage down and up. This worked all right, 

 except that one was obliged to draw off a 

 large amount of warm water from the pipes 

 in order to get the cool water to drink, and 

 it wasted so much soft water that we had to 

 give it up. Now, the engineer of the Ober- 

 lin waterworks has got on to my plan— that 

 is, for drinking water around the neighbor- 

 hood of the works. He bored down into the 

 ground about 27 feet, with an auger; then 

 he put down into the hole thus made some 

 four-inch sewer-pipe, cementing the joints 

 so it will hold water. Then an iron pipe was 

 sent down to the bottom of this sewer-pipe 

 well, and a stream let into it— just enough 

 to allow the water to get as cold as the 

 earth at that depth. This really made an 

 artificial soft-water spring. Of course, I 

 was thirsty while talking with him so much 

 about good water, and I very much enjoyed 

 a drink of pure soft water so cold that it 

 caused dew to form on the outside of the 

 pipes where it was running. By the way, 

 the most satisfactory test to me of the puri- 

 ty of the water was a little fountain where 

 the spray fell on some flowers and on a pile 

 of rocks. Many of the fountains in our 

 large cities are unsightly because of the 

 sediment deposited on the bowl of the foun- 

 tain and the rockwork surrounding it ; in 

 fact, it never gives me very much pleasure to 

 see a fountain where every thing surround- 

 ing, where the spray strikes, is covered with 

 an unsightly slimy deposit of muddy-looking 

 chemicals. Well, the rocks and plants at 



this Oberlin fountain were just as clean 

 as if it were drops of rain instead of spray 

 from an artificial fountain. When the wa- 

 ter evaporated right in the sunshine there 

 was no sediment or deposit at all. Every 

 thing was as clean as a china closet. When 

 I asked the engineer if that reservoir did 

 not produce mosquitoes he replied, "Why, 

 bless your heart, no. Just put some sunfish 

 in your ponds or reservoirs, and they will 

 take care of every ' wiggler. ' ' ' 



Since he mentioned it I think I have been 

 told the same thing before, but I had for- 

 gotten it. When I asked, ' ' By the way, my 

 friend, has not some scientific authority 

 lately informed us that the presence of a 

 very minute quantity of copper sulphate 

 will prevent any possibility of typhoid or 

 other deleterious bacteria from being pres- 

 ent in drinking-water ? " 



"Yes, Mr. Root, you are right about 

 it; and there is deposited in the center of 

 the large reservoir quite a quantity of 

 the crystals of copper sulphate ; and by 

 chemical analysis we are enabled to man- 

 age so as to have the water contain just 

 enough of this fungicide and not too much. 

 The water is also examined once every so 

 often for the presence of bacteria or any 

 other impurity." Thanks to the achieve- 

 ments of modern chemistry, we are, by the 

 aid of scientific machinery, enabled with but 

 little trouble to keep every thing just right 

 to furnish the very best drinking-water pos- 

 sible, at an expense that is comparatively 

 insignificent when carried on on a large 

 scale as it must be to supply a city. 



Mr. W. B. Gerrish, the engineer who so 

 kindly showed me around, says if typhoid 

 fever is ever found in Oberlin we must look 

 elsewhere than to its water supply for the 

 cause. The water, after being treated as I 

 have mentioned, is passed through a beauti- 

 ful filtration plant that does its work so per- 

 fectly that the water, besides being almost 

 soft, is free, practically, from any sort of 

 sediment. I suppose you are aware that the 

 chemists employed by our State can detect 

 the presence of these disease-producing bac- 

 teria now very readily; as a consequence, all 

 the waterworks that supply drinking-water 

 to even small towns in our State are prac- 

 tically safe. The State employs a man to 

 make it his business to examine this water. 

 Of course, it is next to impossible for the 

 State to exercise a similar jurisdiction over 

 the water from wells and natural springs 

 belonging to each home. 



This is an exceedingly important matter; 

 for there are certain localities where fevers 

 have prevailed and taken people off one after 

 another for years until scientific investiga- 

 tion showed that the drinking-water was at 

 the bottom of all the trouble. 



When I was sixteen years of age my 

 father moved from Summit County, where 

 there is an abundance of soft- water springs, 

 on to a farm in Medina County. There was 

 a good well on this farm— that is, it was 

 deep enough so the water was always coM. 

 But I was a frail lad, and that hard well 



