SPRINGS AND STREAMS 



up to us again. In all these ways, except from 

 ponds, we may, if we and our neighbours are 

 careful, obtain good drinking-water, and it is 

 sad to think how often a good supply is spoilt 

 for want of proper care. 



In towns, as we said before, a very great 

 deal of thought is given to the matter. It is 

 worth while to take care when the health and 

 happiness of many thousand people depend on 

 the trouble that is taken and the money that 

 is spent. It is often more difficult to get people 

 to take much trouble for the sake of a few 

 people in the country who cannot afford to 

 spend much. Again, the large towns have often 

 found themselves obliged to buy big tracts of 

 country and get rights to convert valleys into 

 lakes and bore very deep wells for pumping, 

 and in all these ways deprive the country of 

 some of its proper share of water. Then 

 factories and mills until a few years ago were 

 allowed to turn refuse and dirty liquids into 

 the streams and rivers ; towns and villages 

 poured their drainage unchecked into the 

 water, until even the fishes could not live in 

 such an unwholesome place, and people along 

 the banks who drank the water were almost 

 poisoned. 



If we wish to be quite sure that our water- 

 supply is good and safe to drink, we must get 

 it from a place where neither drains nor manu- 

 facturer's refuse have been able to reach it; 



(89) 



