250 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
a village is growing, the rate of increase grows with its size. In 
exactly the same proportion do the evils and objections to this 
independent system grow. The risk of contamination becomes 
very great. It has been frequently ascertained that the death-rate 
for communities emerging from rural to urban existence grows 
faster than in the municipal towns. The two main causes of this 
are, deficient water supply and sanitary negligence, with, worst of 
all, an ungodly connection between the two. 
Many villages have been provided with excellent supplies from 
small springs and streams, intercepted by an earthenware pipe (at 
Kirkinlullock 9" to 12" diameter), leaving the joints open and 
packed with dry stone and clean gravel. When passing unsuitable 
streams these joints are luted with clay and carefully protected. 
Many good supplies of water from systems of land drains are 
thrown away, partly owing to a prejudice that water from subsoil 
drains is unfit for domestic use, and partly from the inconvenient 
level of the supply : a covered reserve tank is never thought of. 
In this country these are almost unknown ; while in many Conti- 
nental states every house is provided with such an appliance. In 
this country, if met with at all, it is in high-class houses, and not 
in those where most wanted. It is generally reckoned that a tank 
ought to contain a quarter the annual rainfall over the catchment 
area to give a fairly continuous supply. 
Wells, although the greatest acquisition to a house, are frequently 
fruitful sources of danger ; this source, now much better known, is 
sewage contamination. By gross inattention to the carriage of 
sewage, a large proportion of valuable wells are rendered dangerous, 
all the more so that it has not yet become a national characteristic 
to criticise water as we do wine and ale. 
After a time, in small springs and wells, contamination tends to 
become chronic \ this has escaped notice, although all are ready to 
admit the capacity foul water has for contaminating pure, especially 
if the impurities are organic. Catch waters, Spillwaters, and Sinks 
near pumps, are the source of untold disease, and ought to be most 
carefully seen to. 
The mere fact of a cesspool being at a lower level than an 
adjacent well, is not at all a guarantee that the well is not con- 
taminated by its sewage. In hot and dry weather there is a 
constant circulation from the lower strata to the higher — this is 
no theory, but observed fact — as moisture is abstracted from the 
