The brick and cement wells are from thirty-five to forty feet deep, and, as it is impossible for the men to work in water of a greater depth, they never extend more than four or five feet into the water-bearing stratum. In consequence of the sandy character of the soil, the banks are supported by wooden drums while the well is being dug, inside of which the brick wall is built. In sinking the cement wells no temporary drum is required. The tubular wells are seventy-five or more feet in depth. Nearly all the wells are located near the curbing, and are usually at the street corners, where the gutters intersect, and where the catch-basins are. constructed. In 'very many instances depressions are to be found in the gutters in front of the pumps, filled with an offensive semi-liquid muck. By the kindness of Mr. Harlan, Superintendent of City Pumps, I examined one of the brick wells on the inside, and the same dirty fluid could be plainly seen trickling down the wall next to the gutter. Mr. Harlan informed me that this was common in all the old wells, and that he removed an average of from twelve to eighteen inches of muck from each of these wells every twelve or eighteen months. The water-supply is from the Ohio River, supplied by the reservoir system, and from the public wells, of which there is one for almost every square. The intake for the water-works is at a safe distance above the city, and samples Nos. 1 and 2 in the table shows the result of the chemical and microscopical examinations of this water at different stages of the river. The large amount of vegetable matter held in suspension causes it to rank low in the chemical analysis, but the small amount of chlorine and the absence of nitrites and free ammonia are favorable to it, and the result of the microscopical examination is still more so. In addition to the danger from direct see page from the gutters, there is a greater danger of contamination of these wells from the surrounding soil. Every well may be said to drain a circumjacent region, which may be represented as an inverted cone, with its apex at the bottom of the well and its base at the surface of the ground, as shown in Fig. 5. The diameter of the base will depend on the depth of the well and character of the soil, and here would probably be from one hundred to two hundred feet. In most instances, such an area would in clude several vaults, cess-pits, foul back yards, alleys, and other sources of filth. The following forcible and instructive instance of the fouling of wells from a source above their level is quoted from the report of Mr. Child, officer of health for certain districts in Oxfordshire, England: "In consequence of the escape of the contents of a barrel of petroleum, or benzoline, which had been buried in an orchard, a circuit of wells sixty feet below, and two hundred and fifty or three hundred yards distant, became so affected that the occupiers of fifteen houses, containing eighty-two inhabitants, were for ten days unable to use the water for drinking or cooking. The cattle of one of the proprietors, moreover, refused to drink at the spring where they were accustomed to drink. Had this soakage been sewage, instead of petroleum, who can doubt that the result might have been wholesale water poisoning, and an outbreak of typhoid fever ?" The accompanying tables give the result of the chemical and microscopical examination of water from the several kinds of wells described, as well as the river water: Wanklyn classifies water as follows: Class I. Water of more than ordinary organic purity, yielding from .00 up to .05 part of albuminoid ammonia per 1,000,000 parts of water. Class II. General drinking-waters, safe organically, yielding from .05 up to .10 part of albuminoid ammonia per 1,000,0co parts of water. Class III. Dirty waters, yielding from .10 and upward of albuminoid ammonia per 1,000,000 parts of water. To report upon the character of a drinking-water from chemical examination alone, as to the water being safe or unsafe, is not always possible. In the thorough investigation carried out by the National Board of Health, in the year 1880, this fact was clearly demonstrated. In this examination, waters that were undoubtedly suspicious, as shown by their histories, gave but little organic matter on chemical examination, and were pronounced safe by the analysis according to the classification of the process used. While this was true, the examination also showed that in pure waters nitrites were absent, or present only in trace, but in waters known to have carried disease the nitrites were almost invariably present; hence, it is safe to look with suspicion upon any water collected where pollution is to be expected, on account of the location, which gives more than a trace of nitrites. Accordingly, after stating the class of the water according to the main process used by me, I have added remarks based upon the presence of nitrites and chlorine. The presence of chlorine in water, in a large quantity, is always suspicious. J. A. TANNER, M.D. (The table of Microscopical Examination is omitted for want of space. The results correspond with the chemical analysis; those samples designated as containing nitrites or ammonia, and those marked dangerous and recommended to be condemned by the chemical analysis were, without exception, found by the microscope also to present dangerous qualities. EDITOR.) The first samples were all taken between December 3 and December 16, 1884. The second samples were collected during the month of January, 1885. Microzymes are alone subject to cultivation in the manner indicated above. These are all indicative of putrid matters highly prejudicial to health. Intermittent, relapsing, and continued fevers, diphtheria, dys entery, and enteric diseases are likely to follow the use of the waters yielding culture products. Fourteen cases of fever are reported in families who used the water from well No. 15, 14 from No. 16, 13 from No. 10, 8 from No. 9, 7 from No. 12, and so on in lesser numbers throughout the list, there being few wells in this quarter of the city from which cases are not reported. Sewers have been constructed very generally in the central portion of the city, but house connections are not enforced, and when made are under little or no official supervision, the connections being left largely to the caprice of the owner and the honesty of the plumber. There are some sewers in the western portion of the city, but these have few house-connections, and even in other portions of the city where house-connections are had it is a common custom to have privy-yaults in the yard for servants; in all other sections the vault system is relied upon by a large majority of the inhabitants. These vaults are sunk inside the wooden drums, as was mentioned in describing the wells, and then walled with brick, the drum. being left to decay. They always extend to the gravel formation, from twenty to thirty feet-for the express purpose, as I was informed by the officials, contractors, physicians, housewives, and all others with whom I conversed on the subject, that the liquid portion of the contents might drain off into the sand and gravel. From what I could see and learn, the ordinances regulating the cleansing of the vaults receive but little attention from either householders or the authorities, and this was especially noticeable in most of those examined by me in the fever districts. The usual location of the vaults is shown on the map by dotted lines running through the centre of the squares, but in many instances they are much nearer the wells, and in one-corner of Grayson and Thirteenth Streets, No. 7. in the table of analysis-which supplies the drinking-water for a public school with six hundred and fifty pupils, as well as the immediate community, the female and male vaults for the school are respectively thirty-six and seventy-six feet from the well. In a large number of houses in the better quarters of the city, where water-closets are constructed inside the houses, these, with the bath-rooms and kitchen-sinks, discharge their contents into "dry-wells" in the yard or cellar. These dry |