SANITARY SURVEY OF DRAINAGE BASIN OF POTOMAC RIVER. 239 
empty into the river, Wills Creek, the mill race, and the canal basin. 
The portion of Wills Creek floYdng through the city is practically an 
open sewer; it is overhung by privies and receives much industrial 
waste. 
The slackwater caused by Dam No. 7 becomes in times of drought 
a practically stagnant crescent-shaped pool, one arm of the crescent 
being formed by the river and the other by the creek. This circum- 
stance, while favorable to the purification, by sedimentation, of what 
is practically dilute sewage, can not be other than a matter of grave 
concern to Cumberland, whose intake, it will be remembered, is only 
1 mile above. When the water is so low that none passes over the 
dam, all the water flows into the canal. It follows, therefore, that at 
such a time , all the sewage and industrial waste of Cumberland finds 
its way into the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. 
During the winter, when the water of the canal is drawn off, the 
race discharges into the basin as usual, but joins the river at the 
foot of the basin below Dam No. 7. 
A good deal of typhoid fever occurs in Cumberland. The record 
for 1905 was 21 deaths — a mortality of 105 per 100,000. From 
January 1 to July 1, 1906, there were recorded 11 deaths from 
typhoid, an increase of 4 over the corresponding period of 1905, as 
may be seen from the following tabulation.® 
Year. 
Jan. 
Feb. 
Mar. 
Apr. 
May. 
June. 
July. 
Aug. 
Sept. 
Oct. 
Nov. 
Dec. 
1905 
0 
2 
2 
2 
0 
1 
1 
1 
2 
4 
5 
1 
1906 
2 
2 
4 
0 
1 
2 
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal . — The Cumberland basin of the 
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, as has been described, is fed by water from 
Wills Creek and the North Branch, which brings with it much, and 
at times all, of the sewage of Cumberland, much of which is precipi- 
tated at this point as is shown by the fact that the canal company 
finds it necessary to dredge out the basin about every other spring. 
This diluted and partly purified sewage flows on down the canal. At 
Dam No. 6 it is further diluted by the water which is fed to the canal 
at this point and which is largely water from the South Branch. A 
half mile above Dam No. 5 and about 88 miles above Great Falls this 
diluted and more or less purified canal water joins the river. At the 
dam the canal again takes its separate way to join the river once 
more about miles above Dam No. 4, and to be one with it for a 
distance of about 3 miles. This union takes place about 71 miles 
above Great Falls. In the rest of its course the canal remains sepa- 
rate from the river, but at each of the dams it takes fresh supplies of 
a Obtained from Dr. John S. Fulton, secretary State board of health of Maryland. 
