December 15, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



845 



was had over the disadvantage or otherwise of 

 using the chemical and considerable excite- 

 ment followed its detection at the city faucets. 

 Material doubt was afterwards thrown upon 

 the accuracy of the determination and upon 

 what may be termed " prophetic taste " when 

 it was noted that the presence of alum had 

 been detected some four days before it was 

 added to the raw water. 



A large town was desperately in need of 

 water and an excellent ground supply was 

 located. The health officer, a physician who 

 was not in favor of the proposed plan, sam- 

 pled the water, carried the sample under his 

 buggy seat during- his professional visits in 

 the country and in the course of a day or two 

 forwarded it, by express, without ice packing, 

 to the central authorities who condemned it 

 "upon the strength of the high count of bac- 

 teria without having ever visited the well. 



An outbreak of typhoid fever manifestly 

 due to transmission by flies occurred in a city 

 during a period when certain repairs were 

 being made to the conduit leading from the 

 source of the public water. Outside author- 

 ities to whom the situation was referred re- 

 ported the outbreak of disease as probably 

 caused by the entrance of the repair gang into 

 the tunnel carrying the municipal supply. A 

 visit to the spot would have convinced the 

 writers of the report of the impossibility of 

 getting the said gang into the twenty-inch 

 cast-iron pipe. 



The duties of the water examiner, however, 

 do not always limit him to use the sanitary 

 survey to save a good water from unfair con- 

 demnation. Quite otherwise. A water of en- 

 tirely satisfactory character judged from the 

 laboratory standpoint may be rated as un- 

 desirable upon inspection of local conditions 

 because of proposed changes in the immediate 

 vicinity of the source. 



A spring water of high quality was con- 

 demned because arrangements had been made 

 to construct a sewer above the spring and near 

 it. The engineer in charge was to construct 

 a " tight sewer," but who could guarantee 

 that it would stay tight? A glance at the 

 tables showing the leakage of ground water 



into sewers should shake one's faith in the 

 permanence of such " tightness," and sewers 

 not tight can allow of leakage out as well as in. 



Damage to water through " new construc- 

 tion " is very fruitful of adverse and unfair 

 reports. Springs of unassailable purity be- 

 come temporarily .injured (solely from the 

 laboratory standpoint) because of " develop- 

 ments " made with a view to improve the sur- 

 roundings. New wells and recently " im- 

 proved " springs will furnish waters likely to 

 be condemned by laboratory standards and 

 samples of their waters should therefore not 

 be submitted for examination. 



Finally, while it is admitted that laboratory 

 methods of water analysis have made great 

 strides towards perfection during recent 

 years, they can never hope to reach such per- 

 fection as to enable the analyst to uniformly 

 rest upon chemistry and bacteriology alone, 

 without aid from the actual sanitary survey, 

 and they can still less be depended upon to 

 furnish information not on what a water is, 

 but on what it is likely to become. 



W. P. Mason 



Troy, N. Y., 



September 25, 1916 



THE CONVOCATION-WEEK MEETINGS 

 OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES 



The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science and the national scientific 

 societies named below will meet at New York 

 City, during convocation week, beginning on 

 Tuesday, December 26, 1916: 



American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science. — President, Charles R. Van Hise, 

 president of the University of Wisconsin; retiring 

 president, Dr. W. W. Campbell, director of the 

 Lick Observatory; permanent secretary, Dr. L. O. 

 Howard, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. 

 C. ; general secretary, Professor W. E. Henderson, 

 Ohio State University; secretary of the council, Dr. 

 C. Stuart Gager, Brooklyn Botanical Garden. 



Section A — Mathematics and Astronomy. — Vice- 

 president, Professor L. P. Eisenhart, Princeton 

 University; secretary, P. B. Moulton, University 

 of Chicago, Chicago, 111. 



Section B — Physics. — Vice-president, Professor 

 H. A. Bumstead, Yale University; secretary, Dr. 



