December 14, 1888.] 



SCIENCE 



293 



and only the sound, and not the verbal genealogy, calls for repre- 

 sentation. The derivation of words belongs to etymology, and not 

 to orthography. 



Our defective alphabet, and the consequent irregularity in spell- 

 ing, form the only obstacle to the international diffusion of Eng- 

 lish. This obstacle may be removed for international purposes 

 without disturbing our own spelling. I now refer for a moment to 

 the system of letters denominated ' World-English,' in which a 

 distinctive character is furnished for each sound in the language. 

 By this means the orthography of every syllable becomes absolutely 

 regular. A large proportion of the common alphabet is retained 

 unchanged in World-English, but each letter is limited to the ex- 

 pression of one single sound. New letters are, of course, intro- 

 duced for unrepresented sounds, and these are designed to re- 

 semble old letters as much as possible. The effect is, that any 

 reader of ordinary English deciphers World-English without the 

 slightest dilTiculty. At the same time — the writing being perfectly 

 phonetic — the exact pronunciation of every word is indicated in 

 the spelling. 



I need not say any thing more concerning World-English, except 

 in reference to certain prevailing misconceptions as to the scope 

 and object of the system. Some critics have looked on the new 

 orthography as only a fresh attempt at spelling-reform ; and they 

 argue, that, as the new letters are not to be found in every print- 

 ing-office, the introduction of the system must needs be hopeless. 

 This view is entirely a misconception. World-English does not in- 

 terfere in any way with ordinary spelling. The object is simply 

 to provide a separate method of learning to read and speak the 

 language, for the benefit chiefly of students in foreign countries, 

 but incidentally also as a help to beginners at home. Books, mag- 

 azines, and newspapers do not require to use a single one of the 

 new letters. 



Other critics have objected to the association of English sounds 

 with the vowel-letters a. e, i, as giving a preference, they say, to 

 narrow usage over the wide usage of Continental Europe, which 

 would require these letters to be sounded ah. a, ee. This is an- 

 other misapprehension of the system. The World-English alpha- 

 bet is not — like that of Visible Speech — a universal alphabet. Its 

 exclusive object is to teach ONE language, and to do so with as 

 perfect conservation as possible of the phonetics of ordinary letters. 

 To have associated the sounds ah, a, ee, with the letters a, e, i, 

 would have defeated the very purpose of the scheme. World- 

 English does not assimilate English to other tongues, but only 

 facilitates the acquisition of the language, exactly as it is spoken in 

 England and America. 



My allotted space does not permit me to say more. I trust, how- 

 ever, that this brief statement will have sufficiently established 

 the claims of English to universality. I have confined my remarks 

 to this single point. If the language were merely as well adapted 

 as any other for international use, its being the native tongue of 

 the two greatest nations on earth should decide the question of its 

 superiority for social, commercial, and scientific intercourse through- 

 out the world. 



Volapiik, Lingua, and other schemes proposed for universal lan- 

 guage, will, I fear, prove but wasted efforts. The field is occupied. 

 Every zone is being covered with broad growths of world-over- 

 spreading English. Let us improve, while we may, what none can 

 supplant, and none need wish supplanted. World-English has per- 

 formed one not unimportant service, in showing how established 

 spelling may be preserved, while the orthographic obstacles are 

 removed that have hindered both the diffusion of the language, 

 and its recognition, as the most fit medium for international com- 

 munication universally. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 

 The Pollution of Water-Supplies. 



Dr. Charles SM.\Rr, surgeon U.S.A.. presented a report at the 

 recent meeting of the American Public Health Association on the 

 pollution of water-supplies. 



The report gives special emphasis to the conclusion reached at 

 the previous meeting, that, when there is sewage in a water-supply, 



there is danger of typhoid infection. Some of the evidence is briefly 

 cited ; and the financial interests involved are held responsible for 

 the hesitancy to acknowledge this specific danger, for as soon as a 

 city relieves itself from the oppression of the moneyed interests, 

 and procures a wholesome water for its citizens, it immediately 

 recognizes the connection between sewage and typhoid. Vienna 

 recognized this connection when it found, that, by substituting 

 the water of a mountain-stream for the sewage-water of the 

 Danube, its annual deaths from typhoid fell from three hundred 

 and forty to fifty, and shortly afterwards to eleven, in every hun- 

 dred thousand of the population ; and an improved sewerage system 

 had nothing to do with this, as the sewerage system was in exist- 

 ence during the period of high typhoid rates. 



The efforts made by municipal authorities and water companies 

 are then passed in review. The advantages of sedimentation, 

 which is the method generally adopted in this country, are recog- 

 nized, and particularly when sedimentation is promoted by the use 

 of precipitants, such as chloride of iron, as recently suggested by 

 L. H. Gardner of New Orleans, La. The changes that take place 

 during storage are held to be purifying in their nature, notwith- 

 standing the vast increase in the number of bacteria developed in 

 the stored waters. The slowness of the sedimenting process, often 

 necessitating a large expenditure for storage-basins, has led to the 

 experimental use of such filtering-beds as are employed so gener- 

 ally for municipal supplies in England ; but the expense attending 

 them is large, and the coldness of our winters begets difficulties 

 which are not encountered in the milder climate of England. At- 

 tention is then directed to the patent filters that have of late been 

 manufactured for use on a large scale. Their ability to furnish 

 a clear water is conceded ; but the object of the filtration of a 

 water-supply for domestic or public service is its wholesomeness 

 when used for drinking, and its transparency gives no testimony on 

 this point. Artificial filtration has neither the time nor the surface 

 to effect percolation after nature's methods. In these artificial fil- 

 ters, as much water is transmitted under pressure in half an hour 

 as nature purifies on the same area annually. Bacteria of nitrifi- 

 cation, which effect the purification during the passage of a water 

 through the soil, cannot be harnessed to the work of the artificial 

 filter. Artificial filtration consists of the mechanical separation of 

 a water from its suspended impurities, while the essential of nat- 

 ural filtration is the thorough nitrification of the dissolved albumi- 

 noids of the water, the removal of the suspended matters being^ 

 incidental a.nd merely secondary. 



But although sedimentation and filtration give a more or less 

 clear water, and one in which the organic matters that are prone 

 to decompose are destroyed and rendered harmless by bacterial 

 agencies, if an infected sewage has entered the water, the living 

 germs of typhoid-fever are not removed or deprived of their viru- 

 lence by any of these modes of purification. The infected water 

 which prostrated twelve hundred of the eight thousand inhabitants 

 of Plymouth, Penn., and killed a hundred and thirty of those whom 

 it prostrated, passed through three storage-reservoirs on its way to 

 accomplish its deadly mission ; and the springs of Lauzun, in 

 Switzerland, contained the germs and propagated the disease, al- 

 though their waters had undergone a thorough filtration. From 

 the particulars of the latter epidemic, it is held, that, while sewage 

 irrigation may give effluents that will preserve our streams from 

 becoming open sewers, it will never furnish a water which can be 

 afterwards used as a drinking-supply. 



The conclusion reached is an emphasized reiteration of that of 

 every committee which has investigated this subject, — that a water 

 to which sewage has had access should, from that fact alone, be ex- 

 cluded from all further consideration as a possible water-supply for 

 domestic purposes. Money is held to be all that is wanting to 

 solve the question of pure water-supplies. Engineering difficulties 

 fall into insignificance when surveyed from a satisfactory financial 

 standpoint. It is often said to be beyond the power of money to 

 purchase health, but the sanitary student can readily demonstrate 

 that in many cases this is not so. Money expended in the distri- 

 bution of a wholesome water-supply will purchase health for the 

 thousands who otherwise fall victims to the fever which is endemic 

 in our cities and towns. Typhoid-fever is a disease to which every 

 one is exposed. The susceptibility to it is inherent in our consti- 



