Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1894 — Filtering a City's Water Supply. [ARTICLE]

Filtering a City's Water Supply.

The City of Lawrence, Mass., is experimenting with a “filter bed” with? which it hopes to purify the water of the Merrimac River, the source of the water supply of that city. The experiment is being made id pursuance of the discovery made two years ago by the State Board of Health of Massachusetts that certain cities which had suffered especially from typhoid fever were using water from polluted rivers. The board gave assurance that by the use of filter beds 98 per cent, of the bacteria organisms, some of which are harmful, would be removed. The filtering was begun September 20th, since which time daily investigation shows that this proportion of the bacteria is removed from the water, and also that the water is so purified that three-fourths of the remaining two per cent, die before the water reaches the dwelling-houses. The fact that the number of deaths from typhoid fever in that city during the months of October and November of last year was only one each month, while formerly the average for five years was five each month, seems to furnish conclusive evidence that there is virtue in the plan recommended by the Massachusetts Board. —[Troy Press.