238 
TYPHOID FEVER IN DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 
flows east to Hyndman. It is polluted by the filth from prhdes at 
several minor points before it reaches Hyndman, which is the largest 
town on the creek. 
Hyndman has a public water supply from a near by mountain 
spring. Privies are in general use; but there is one sewer, which 
serves a few houses, the bank, and hotels. A tannery on the east 
side of the creek pollutes the stream with the sewage of its 55 
employees. Four or five cases of typhoid were reported this year to 
September 15. 
At Corrigan ville the creek is joined by Jennings Pun, which heads 
at Frostburg and in its course becomes charged with large quantities 
of mine water and, at Blount Salvage, with the water of Mount Savage 
Pun, bringing its burden of pollution from a fire clay mine and the 
filth of overhanging privies. 
Combined with the waters of Jennings Pun, Wills Creek flows on, 
being joined at the Narrows by Braddock Pun, the waters of which 
are polluted by privies at Eckhart mines and again by large privies 
at Allegheny Grove, a camping and picnic resort. Pecently a tunnel 
has been completed near Clarysville and the mine water from Eckhart 
and Hofiman mines, which has heretofore been pumped into Georges 
Creek, will be diverted into Braddock Pun by this route. 
Passing through “The Narrows,’’ Wills Creek reaches a dam at the 
tannery of the United States Leather Company, which diverts more 
or less of its flow into a mill race, which flows through the city of 
Cumberland and into the basin of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. 
In times of low water there is no flow over the dam, all the water 
passing into the race; at other times the excess goes on over the dam 
and flows through Cumberland to the head of the Chesapeake and 
Ohio Canal, into which, through the head gates, much of this filth- 
laden water, more or less mixed with that of the North Branch, 
passes. Just below this point is Dam No. 7. 
The relation that Wills Creek, the mill race, the canal, the river, and 
Dam No. 7 bear one to the other at this point is of great practical 
interest to both Cumberland and Washington. 
Cumberland, the largest city on the Potomac watershed above 
Washington, is estimated to have a population of about 20,000. It 
has a public water supply taken from the river about a mile above 
where Wills Creek joins it. The w^ater from this intake flows to a 
well at the pumping station, which is in the park on the river’*s edge 
just above the mouth of Wills Creek. The old intake was at this 
point, but was sealed up when the change to the new was made. It 
appears, however, that the seal no longer serves its purpose, for when 
the river is sufficiently high water flows into the well through this 
intake. Water from private wells and cisterns is used to a consider- 
able extent. A very large part of the city is sewered ; the sewers 
