64 George C. Whipple 



Often, however, people do not discriminate between odors which are 

 due to decomposition and those which are not. Habit and associa- 

 tion have much to do with a person's views as to the attractiveness of 

 water. In New England, where the clear trout brooks run with what 

 Thoreau called "meadow tea," few people object to a moderate 

 amount of color, while they do object to a water which is very turbid. 

 In the Middle West, where all the streams are muddy, it is the un- 

 known colored waters which are disliked. People who are accus- 

 tomed to well water object to both color and turbidity. With most 

 people a fine turbidity, such as is produced by minute clay particles, 

 is less a subject of complaint than an equal turbidity produced by 

 comparatively coarse sediment. In the diagram an attempt has been 

 made to reconcile these different points of view so as to put them, as 

 weU as may be, on the same footing. In this connection several series 

 of comparisons were made.* Turbid waters were viewed through 

 the eyes of a group of western people, who made some comparisons 

 with color and turbid waters, while colored waters were viewed through 

 the eyes of a group of students in New York, and vice versa. 



The abscissae of the diagram represent turbidity, color, and odor, 

 as given in the ordinary water analysis. f The ordinates represent the 

 "per cent of objecting consumers." By this is meant the proportion 

 of the water-takers who would ordinarily choose not to drink the water 

 because of the quality indicated by the curve, or who would buy spring 

 water, or bottled water, rather than use the public supply, if they 

 could afford to do so. This number would increase, of course, as the 

 general attractiveness of the water decreased. From the curves one 

 may calculate what may be called the esthetic deficiency of the water 

 by adding together the per cents of objecting consumers for color, 

 turbidity, and odor. If the esthetic deficiency equals loo, it indicates 

 that the water is of such a character that everyone would object to it, 

 and figures in excess of loo only emphasize its objectionable character. 



It will be seen from the diagram that when the color of water is 

 less than 20, or the turbidity less than 5, only one person in ten would 

 object to it, but when the turbidity or color is 100, one-half of the 



♦Acknowledgments are due to Mr. J. W. Ellms, of Cindnnati, Ohio, and Mr. Andrew Mayer, Jr., 

 of Brooklyn, N. Y. 



tSee " Report of Committee on Standard Methods of Water Analysis, American Public Health Asso- 

 ciation, " Supplement No. i. Journal of Infectious Diseases, May, 1905. 



