One can travel through England, Belgium, Holland, Germany, and large portions of other European countries and drink the water at every city visited without anxiety as to its effect upon his health. It has not always been so. Formerly European capitals drank water no better than that so often dispensed now in America. As recently as 1892 Germany’s great commercial centre, Hamburg, having a water-supply essentially like those of Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New Orleans, and a hundred other American cities, paid a penalty in one month of eight thousand lives for its carelessness. The lesson was a dear one, but it was not wasted. Hamburg now has a new and wholesome supply, and other German cities the qualities of whose waters were open to question have been forced to take active measures to better their conditions. We also can learn something from their experience.
There are three principal methods of securing a good water-supply for a large city. The first consists of damming a stream from an uninhabited or but sparsely inhabited watershed, thus forming an impounding reservoir. This method is extensively used in England and in the United States. In the latter most of the really good and large supplies are so obtained. It is only applicable to places having suitable watersheds within a reasonable distance, and there are large regions where, owing to geological and other conditions, it cannot be applied. It is most useful in hilly and poor farming countries, as in parts of England and Wales, in the Atlantic States, and in California. It cannot be used to any considerable extent in level and fertile countries which are sure to be or to become densely populated, as is the case with large parts of France and Germany and in the Middle States.
The second method is to secure ground-water, that is, spring or well water, which by its passage through the ground has become thoroughly purified from any impurities which it may have contained. This was the earliest and is the most widely used method of securing good water. It is specially adapted to small supplies. Under favorable geological conditions very large supplies have been obtained in this manner. In Europe Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Munich, Cologne, Leipzig, Dresden, a part of London, and very many smaller places are so supplied. This method is also extensively used in the United States for small and medium-sized places, and deserves to be most carefully studied, and used whenever possible, but is unfortunately limited by geological conditions and cannot be used except in a fraction of the cases where supplies are required. No ground-water supplies yet developed in the United States are comparable in size to those used in Europe.
The third process of securing a good water-supply is by means of filtration of surface waters which would otherwise be unsuitable for domestic purposes. The methods of filtration, which it is the purpose of this volume to explain, are beyond the experimental stage; they are now applied to the purification of the water-supplies of European cities with an aggregate population of at least 20,000,000 people. In the United States the use of filters is much less common, and most of the filters in use are of comparatively recent installation.
Great interest has been shown in the subject during the last few years, and the peculiar character of some American waters, which differ widely in their properties from those of many European streams, has received careful and exhaustive consideration. In Europe filtration has been practised with continually improving methods since 1829, and the process has steadily received wider and wider application. It has been most searchingly investigated in its hygienic relations, and has been repeatedly found to be a most valuable aid in reducing mortality. The conditions under which satisfactory results can be obtained are now tolerably well known, so that filters can be built in the United States with the utmost confidence that the result will not be disappointing.
The cost of filtration, although considerable, is not so great as to put it beyond the reach of American cities. It may be roughly estimated that the cost of filtration, with all necessary interest and sinking funds, will add 10 per cent to the average cost of water as at present supplied.
It may be confidently expected that when the facts are better understood and realized by the American public, we shall abandon the present filthy and unhealthy habit of drinking polluted river and lake waters, and shall put the quality as well as the quantity of our supplies upon a level not exceeded by those of any country.
CHAPTER II.
CONTINUOUS FILTERS AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION.
Filtration of water consists in passing it through some substance which retains or removes some of its impurities. In its simplest form filtration is a straining process, and the results obtained depend upon the fineness of the strainer, and this in turn is regulated by the character of the water and the uses to which it is to be put. Thus in the manufacture of paper an enormous volume of water is required free from particles which, if they should become imbedded in the paper, would injure its appearance or texture. Obviously for this purpose the removal of the smaller particles separately invisible to the unaided eye, and thus not affecting the appearance of the paper, and the removal of which would require the use of a finer filter at increased expense, would be a simple waste of money. When, however, a water is to be used for a domestic water supply and transparency is an object, the still finer particles which would not show themselves in paper, but which are still able, in bulk, to render a water turbid, should be as far as possible removed, thus necessitating a finer filter; and, when there is reason to think that the water contains the germs of disease, the filter must be fine enough to remove with certainty those organisms so extraordinarily small that millions of them may exist in a glass of water without imparting a visible turbidity.
It is now something over half a century since the first successful attempts were made to filter public water-supplies, and there are now hundreds of cities supplied with clear, healthy, filtered water. (Appendix IV.) While the details of the filters used in different places present considerable variations, the general form is, in Europe at least, everywhere the same. The most important parts of a filter are shown by the accompanying sketch, in which the dimensions are much exaggerated. The raw water is taken from the river into a settling-basin, where the heaviest mud is allowed to settle. In the case of lake and pond waters the settling-tank is dispensed with, but it is essential for turbid river-water, as otherwise the mud clogs the filter too rapidly. The partially clarified water then passes to the filter, which consists of a horizontal layer of rather fine sand supported by gravel and underdrained, the whole being enclosed in a suitable basin or tank. The water in passing through the sand leaves behind upon the sand grains the extremely small particles which were too fine to settle out in the settling-basin, and is quite clear as it goes from the gravel to the drains and the pumps, which forward it to the reservoir or city.