173 



Miscellanies. 



12. Filtration of Water for Domestic purposes. (J. G.) — Ma- 

 ny families and individuals are subjected to great inconvenience and 

 often to the injury of health by the use of impure water. The wa- 

 ter of wells and springs, is very frequently impure, not only from the 

 ingredients which it holds in solution, but from earthy and foreign 

 matters suspended in it. From the former, that is, the saline and 

 calcareous matters which are completely dissolved in it, and which 

 render it hard and unsavory, it cannot be deprived by filtration mere- 

 ly, but from those foreign substances, which destroy its transparency 

 and make it turbid and unpleasant, the filter is an effectual remedy. 

 Besides, there are few dwellings, whether in situations where the 

 well water is naturally hard and injurious, to those who drink freely 

 of it, or otherwise defective, from which, with a little attention, rain 

 water may not be caught in sufficient quantity to answer for cooking 

 and drinking, and this when passed through the filter we are about 

 to describe, is perfectly fit for these uses. 



The cheapest kind of filter, and at the same time, one of the best 

 ever used, is the following. 



AB, is a wooden ^ 



box made of pine 

 plank, which should 

 be previously boiled 

 several times in wa- 

 ter, to remove all the 

 resinous, or soluble 

 parts which give taste 

 to the water. C is a 

 cover with a rim, and 

 D is a sliding board, 

 to keep the filtered 

 water from dust. X 

 receives the water to 



be filtered, which first [rC^ 

 passes through a bed ^ 

 of coarse gravel G, terminating in fine sand, and then through a bed 

 of charcoal H, coarsely pounded, and again through sand, resting on 

 fine gravel I. From this, the water passes through an opening one 

 and a half inches high, at the bottom of the partition, into the com- 

 partment K, which contains only fine sand. The compartment L, 



