Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/181

Rh The work of supplying water to a community is, however, an engineering problem, and for some years water-works' officials and engineers have felt the need of having in their own hands the means of determining the quality of the water. This has not been because they wished to assume duties pertaining to the health authorities or because they stood in fear of criticism, but because the management of the water supplies demands immediate information of a character not always appreciated by a physician and not always promptly obtainable from the laboratory of a health department. Accordingly, there has been developed in this country during the last decade an interesting group of water-works laboratories devoted to sanitary supervision and to experiments upon water purification.

The first of these laboratories was that of the Boston Water Works, established in 1889 by Mr. Desmond Fitzgerald, C. E., then Superintendent of the Western Division. At that time, and for several years previous, the water supplied to the city was in ill favor with the consumers because of its brown color and its vegetable taste. The primary object of the laboratory was the study of these objectionable conditions and the means for relieving them, but as the work proceeded it developed along broader lines. The laboratory, situated on the shore of Chestnut Hill Reservoir, consisted of a small frame building of two rooms, one used for general biological work and the other fitted up as a photographic dark room. The working force consisted of one biologist and three assistants, besides a number of attendants at the reservoirs, who devoted a portion of their time to the collection of samples and the observation of the temperature of the water. The following were the general outlines of the work:

The water supply of the city was derived from Lake Cochituate and from a series of storage reservoirs on the Sudbury River. The waters from these sources differed from each other and varied at different seasons of the year. Accordingly, a system of inspection and analysis was arranged in such a way that the superintendent knew at all times the exact condition of the water throughout the system. Samples of water were collected regularly from all streams tributary to the supply, from reservoirs at various places and at different depths, and from the aqueduct. and distribution pipes. When these reached the laboratory they were examined microscopically and bacteriologically, the presence of any odor-producing organism was carefully noted and an immediate report was rendered when necessary. Careful observations of color were also made. When the work in Boston was started the methods of biological examination of water were in their infancy. The Sedgwick-Rafter method of ascertaining the number of microscopic organisms in water had just been devised and the methods of plate culture of bacteria were just becoming popular. The new methods were adopted in the Chestnut