390 
Some  Recent  Literature. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
I      August,  1904. 
COARSELY-POWDERED  TALC  FOR  MAKING  AROMATIC  WATERS. 
J.  P.  Remington,  ]r.(ibid.)  obtained  from  the  mines  of  North  Caro- 
lina talc  in  broken  pieces,  which  were  broken  up  and  ground  in  a 
small  mill  of  the  Bogardus  type,  which  consists  of  a  conical  feed 
box,  or  hopper,  which  delivers  the  pieces  of  material  between  two 
discs,  revolving  horizontally.  With  this  mill  he  obtained  powders 
of  varying  degrees  of  fineness,  which  were  boiled  with  distilled  water 
containing  hydrochloric  acid,  and  afterwards  thoroughly  washed  and 
dried.  A  powder  ranging  between  80  and  120,  i.  e.,  one  which  would 
pass  through  a  sieve  of  80  meshes  to  the  inch  and  retained  by  a  120 
sieve,  was  found  to  be  the  most  satisfactory  in  making  the  following 
aromatic  waters :  Anise,  fennel,  cinnamon,  peppermint,  spearmint 
and  camphor.  H.  K. 
THE  PURIFICATION  OF  WATER  SUPPLIES. 
This  subject  has  been  taken  up  by  the  U.  S.  Department  of  Agri- 
culture, and  on  May  7th,  Bulletin  No.  64,  of  the  Bureau  of  Plant 
Industry,  entitled  "A  Method  of  Destroying  or  Preventing  the 
Growth  of  Algse  and  Certain  Pathogenic  Bacteria  in  Water  Sup. 
plies,"  and  prepared  by  George  T.  Moore,  Pathologist  and  Algolo- 
gist,  in  charge  of  Laboratory  of  Plant  Physiology,  and  Karl  F. 
Kellerman,  Assistant  in  Physiology,  was  issued. 
The  authors  state  that  "  while  the  best  known  cases  of  water 
pollution  are  those  due  to  the  presence  of  typhoid  and  other  germs 
which  have  given  rise  to  serious  epidemics,  there  are  a  vastly 
greater  number  of  water  supplies  which  are  rendered  unfit  for  use, 
not  because  they  are  dangerous  to  public  health,  but  on  account  of 
the  very  offensive  odor  and  taste  produced  in  them  by  plants  other 
than  bacteria." 
Data  furnished  by  the  leading  engineers  and  superintendents  of 
water  companies,  in  reply  to  a  circular  letter  sent  to  them,  show  that 
the  trouble  caused  by  algae  in  water  supplies  belongs  to  no  particu- 
lar section  of  the  country,  but  is  of  wide  distribution,  extending 
from  Maine  to  California,  and  from  Minnesota  to  Texas,  and  that  it  is 
of  the  most  serious  kind,  in  some  instances  rendering  the  water 
wholly  unfit  for  use. 
Because  of  the  unsatisfactory  results  yielded  by  the  methods  now 
in  use  for  eliminating  algae  from  water  supplies,  or  because  of  their 
great  expense,  the  authors  decided  to  take  up  the  biological  phase 
