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Water and its Impurities, with 



Whenever water becomes stagnant organic growths 

 'spring up. Vegetable at first, but with the decay of this, 

 there is the appearance of animal life. The gases 

 which result from their death and decay are of the. 

 most offensive character, and this is the usual order of their 

 appearance. The order may be varied by the acid or 

 alkaline condition of the water, that which is acid pro- 

 ducing vegetation, and the alkaline animalcula. These 

 conditions are illustrated in the bad water of this city for 

 the past few years, though they are not peculiar to the 

 water of Albany or of any other place, being common to 

 all waters exposed to such conditions. The same effect 

 may be easily produced if some of the white of an egg is 

 mixed in water in two glasses, and the one made acid 

 and the other alkaline. In a day or two if kept at 

 a proper temperature they will both swarm with life. 



I would not however have it inferred that in conse- 

 quence of this, and unavoidably, a disagreeable condition 

 of the fluid must exist which is irremediable. The 

 results of their decay are beyond doubt, disagreeable 

 gases ; but if you turn them out into the field, which is 

 putting them in nature's laboratory, they will soon be 

 deprived of all offensive character. The manner in which 

 this is done is instructive ; resulting from the principle to 

 which I have alluded, that air will displace other gases, 

 they are rolled and tumbled along until every particle of 

 fluid has been acted upon by it, and the water is clean. 



We have an illustration on a larger scale before us. 

 The water of the Hudson river at Albany is loaded 

 with organic impurities draining from the refuse of 

 nearly seventy-five thousand persons, yet two miles 

 below the city is unobjectionable for drinking, having 

 become purified in that distance. 



I have thus hastily noticed a few of the facts relating to 

 impurities in waters, confining myself to those which 



