CHAPTER XXIV 

 CITY WATER SUPPLY 



154. The Problem of Pure Water. The problem of 

 supplying rapidly growing American cities with water is 

 not an easy one and to supply pure water is much more 

 difficult. The city of New York has spent many millions 

 of dollars to bring a supply of pure water from the Cats- 

 kill Mountains. Pittsburgh has one filtering plant that 

 covers 60 acres and has spent a large sum during the last 

 ten years to get pure water. Many other cities are doing 

 the same. The world has awakened to the necessity of 

 pure water, principally because of the large number of 

 epidemics of typhoid fever which have been caused by 

 contaminated water. Typhoid fever germs live in the 

 food tube of the body and the excreta of a typhoid patient 

 contain large numbers of such germs. In a city with a 

 system of sewage such germs might pass from the sewers 

 into a river without being killed. Some cities and 

 towns take their water directly from rivers, at times not 

 far below another large city. Such cities will get many 

 germs in their water supply. Other cities as Buffalo 

 and Cleveland take their water from lakes into which 

 their own sewage flows. Many cities which drain their 

 sewage into rivers and lakes now have a means of dis- 

 posing of the sewage in such a way as to render it harmless 

 to their neighbor cities. Filtering river water by passing 

 it through settling basins and sand filters and adding 

 chemicals removes about 98 per cent of the germs. The 



