GKEENE COUNTY. 695 



separated points is due to the geological structure which they have in 

 common. The blocky limestones which underlie them all, taken in con- 

 nection with the arrangements of well and cess-pool that ordinarily pre- 

 vail, renders not only possible, but, in many cases, necessary, the defile- 

 ment of drinking water with the products of disease. 



There are two village sites in Greene county which, however attractive 

 and advantageous in other respects, must be considered as positively 

 unsafe with respect to their natural water-supply. The village sites re- 

 ferred to are those of Yellow Springs and Clifton. 



In the former the danger of contaminated wells is rendered less from 

 the fact that the dwellings are so* widely separated from each other, but 

 a very free connection between the privy vault and well of the same 

 premises must certainly exist in many instances. Happily, on account 

 of the trouble and expense of getting wells, cisterns have been a large 

 dependence of the village from the first, and it is not known that any 

 outbreak of disease can be traced to contaminated drinking water, but it 

 cannot be amiss to call attention to the elements of danger involved. 



The village of Clifton, unfortunately, has not as good a record. No 

 town of Ohio suffered more severely, in proportion to its population, from 

 the cholera epidemic of 1849, than this little village. To any one ac- 

 quainted with its geological structure, and at the same time with the 

 results of modern inquiries in regard to the distribution of cholera, the 

 suspicion that the water-supply was largely connected with the fatality 

 of the disease cannot be repressed, and the history of the spread of the 

 pestilence points to the same cause. 



The village is located on the north bank of the Little Miami River, 

 which here occupies a deep and narrow gorge, wrought out of the Niagara 

 limestone, as has been before stated. For forty or fifty rods back from 

 the gorge there is but a shallow earthy covering of the rock, but beyond 

 this the Drift increases in thickness until it is not less than fifty or 

 seventy-five feet in depth. The village is mainly built upon the first 

 named tract, but quite a number of dwellings are located on the higher 

 ground. The latter derive their water-supply from the ordinary Drift 

 wells of the country, while in the closer-built portions of the village 

 on the low ground the wells descend from fifteen to twenty-five feet into 

 the rock, probably deriving their water from the same horizon, viz., the 

 summit of the Springfield division of the limestone. 



The cholera was confined to the lower part of the village, not a single 

 case occurring in the higher ground. The disease made its appearance 

 in the hotel or village tavern, a stranger who came into the village m 

 the evening being attacked in the night and dying the next mornmg. 



