THE FUTILITY OF A SANITARY WATER ANALYSIS AS 

 A TEST OF POTABILITY * 



MARSHALL O. LEIGHTON. 



WHOSOEVER expresses doubts concerning generally accepted 

 ideas must be prepared to see his statements misinterpreted and 

 their application carried far beyond the point at which they were 

 aimed, even to the absurd and grotesque. He must not expect 

 that his observations and deductions will be confined to the limits 

 prescribed, even though he resorts to every safeguard that his mother- 

 tongue affords. More attention is paid to the devious paths along 

 which his statements may lead by implication than to the single 

 trail that he has defined by precise guide-posts. Finally, such a 

 person must sustain confrontation by that splendid, indispensable, 

 and all-saving power known as conservatism. Therefore the author 

 of this paper hoists a flag of truce while he makes his preliminary 

 declaration, in the hope that the highest possible proportion of those 

 interested may not mistake his line of march. 



1. All contentions concerning the futility of sanitary analyses 

 are applied strictly to waters. Sewages, fresh and stale, and sewage 

 effluents are expressly eliminated from consideration, except in certain 

 cases where they will be taken to illustrate the fact that they may 

 occasionally be accepted as unpolluted water, according to standard 

 methods of interpretation. 



2. It is not contended that all sanitary water analyses are futile 

 irrespective of the conditions under which they are made and inter- 

 preted. In consistent studies of nitrogen, as such, and the changes 

 which take place in its form, such analyses are important. 



3. // is admitted that in certain limited areas of the United States 

 sanitary water analyses afford information by which animal pollu- 

 tion may occasionally be detected. 



4. The facts comprised in the foregoing admission have been a 

 stumbling-block to chemists working with waters outside of those 

 limited areas. 



* Received for publication, March 30, 1906. 



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