1893-1894 - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

228 APPENDIX.
A water supply from ruuning streams hardly merits consideration itt
this connection, on account of the limited extent it is likely to be used
for ordinary household purposes. In general it may be said that a large
stream with swift current flowing from a practically uninhabited territory
will furnish water of satisfactory quality. The presence of cities on its
banks, using it as a drain to receive their sewage and other wastes, would
virtually condemn the water without a hearing. The smaller the stream
the more suspicious the water will naturally become, and the small creeks
and branches would hardh- be considered as having anj' claims worthy of
attention unless the surroundings were of an unexceptionable nature.
We may sum it all up by saying that it almost entirely depends upon
the local conditions of the water-shed whether the water of a stream can
be used with safetj- for domestic consumption. If a sparsely settled
region, where the soil is cultivated to a limited extent only, the organic
impurity will naturally be comparatively small and of vegetable origin.
Still such supplies require to be zealousl}' guarded to insure absolute freedom
from danger, as witness the terrible epidemic of typhoid fever at
Plymouth, Pa., a few years ago. The excreta of a t3^phoid patient some
miles from the city had been throv^n out on the snow, and the spring
thaws had carried it into the mountain stream from which a part of the
city derived its suppl)-. The water had been of undoubted purit}-, coming
as it did from a sparseh- settled mountainous region, and it was a long
time before any suspicion of the true cause of the epidemic was entertained.
The part of the town getting its suppl}' from a river of rather
doubtful quality entirely escaped the epidemic. This fact, however,
should not lead us to put our trust in water supplies of suspicious character,
but rather to exercise strict watchfulness over the source of supply,
however high its rank as a wholesome water, or however free it may
appear to be from prospective contamination. The case I have just
referred to is a striking example of the danger of a good supply being
polluted by a specific germ of disease.
In some localities in our State a plentiful suppl}' of water of satisfactory
quality may be had from what are known as driven wells; that is,
pipes perforated at the point and driven into the ground to the proper depth,
the pump being attached to the surface end of the pipe. Of course this
type of well presupposes that the mass of earth above the water-bearing
stratum is virtuall}- nothing but sand, and where the locality is thickly
settled the chances are that the water will be contaminated with organic
impurities leaching down from above. These waters are generally cool,,
of a fair degree of softness and well adapted for household use. In a
sparsely settled locality it is quite probable that the surface impurities,
would be so small in quantitj' that they would be eliminated before reaching
the ground water level, the sandy stratum acting as a filter of the
intermittent type, which the very elaborate and extensive experiments of