History of the Water Supply of the World / arranged in a comprehensive form from eminent authorities, containing a description of the various methods of water supply, pollution and purification of waters, and sanitary effects, with analyses of potable waters, also geology and water strata of Hamilton county, Ohio, statistics of the Ohio river, proposed water supply of Cincinnati.

by Thomas J. Bell

3. The filtration of the sewage from all mills, to exclude solid matter, animal or vegetable.

4. The exclusion of ammonia waste and surface wash from gas-works, cemeteries, etc.

5. The cultivation of fish and of suitable plant life in and upon the waters of the river.

6. The erection of suitable cascades over the reservoirs, so as to secure the benefits of aeration to as great extent as possible.

7. The employment of proper prophylactic and curative agents as occasion may require.

Boston obtained legislative power to protect Pegan Brook from sewage pollution. Test cases, to compel manufacturers to provide some other means of disposing of their drainage, were carried to the Supreme Court, and decided in favor of the city. Similar cases will be brought against other offenders. In the meantime the pollution continues. The same authorities procured a law to protect Mystic Lake, and provide other channels for sewage. The provisions of the act were held to be impracticable, and the law is now a dead letter.

The self-purification of river water is not recognized by some authorities, but equally good authorities value its merits. The following observations on this subject are particularly applicable to Cincinnati:

“The most efficacious means to get rid of the sewage is not to put it into the river at all.

“A chemist can tell you the amount of organic matter contained in the water, but that covers an infinite variety of matters. He has no means of discrimination as to what is really the ferment—the infectious material—of cholera from a great number of other organic matters.