Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-07-03
NAsHvILLE'S WATER SUPPLY.
A Characteristic Paper by the Pres
ident Of the American Med.
zeal Association.

lCtt AS>tCldAIous
The Sweet, Healthy Cumberland Rev.
eraxe-Hits at the stones River
ProJeet-Our Springs and Their yir-
tues-waFm B5drant Water and
Cholera.
In the Nashville Journal Of Medicine
and Surgery for June, just issued, DIR. W.
K. Bowling, President Of the American
Medical Association, has paper entitled
sCholera Notes. from which we make the
following Characteristic and highly enter
tanning extracts concerning the water sup
ply of Nashville:
sAt Nashville the drinking water is sup
piled from the Cumberland river. There is
no. a town with sewerage emptying into the
river, from its source, five hundred miles
above, to this city. The water is pumped
ND by steam into a reser, Or upon a high
eminence on the river bank, within the
city limits, and distributed by iron pipes
throughout its area. The supply is abun-
daut, furnishing a number Of steam mills
with water, and, singulaTly enough, steam
saw and Touring mills Immediately upon
the bank Of Il e river, more than one hun
dred ana fifty feet below the reservoir, so
that immense quantities are pumped up to
90 Immediately back to supply the boilers
of these mills. For years, during the war,
this reservoir supplied about an hundred
| thousand people, besides any number Of
horses.
"The Cumberland is fed, by mountain
streams, bringing down the melted snow
| from the heights the Cumberland Noun
| tainS, and from the watersheds of Their in
Vulnerable slopes. There is not town in
America that can boast better supply of
sweet, healthy water. The CrOtOn is softer
/ and clearer. and TO a New Yorker, may be
more pllatable. but l infinitely prefer the
/ Cumberland. The reservoir has a central
division impeTvioGs 10 water The muddy
water of the river falls into one compart-
ment, where it deposits most Of its impu-
rites before il is permitted to pass into the
other. which communicates with the main;
still it arrives often at our hydrants rather
of the color Of new cider. Even then il is
| delicious. We remember, after the close Of
the late war. when the Southern soldiers
were pouring in here, and we had begged
The pleasure Of quartering great number
at our house, how delicious they regarded
the Cumberland water. when we had never
seen it muddier.
.Nearly all Of our well-tO-dO families, in
the last few years, have supplied themselves
with filtererS, from which the muddieSt
water issues as clear Is crystal. These
flterers are supplied with ice boxes. which,
when kept replenished, make the water as
cold IS their contents, and offer. 10 the
thirsty man, the most grateful, the most
delicious, beverage ever lasted by our pal
ate. Yet many Of our people are not sat
iStied, They want a new water supply
they are afraid, somehow, a dead rat, or a
defunct cholera chicken, may have fallen
into some Of the tributaries Of the Cumber-
Land, They, with kindiing Indignation,
will tell You that Browns creek enters the
Cumberland Adore the Waier-wOrkS, and
that Sandy Bottom, q hamlet Of negro
shanties, is near Browns creek, not two
miles from its junction with the Cumber-
land, Nay, they will buttOn-hOle you, and,
with a SILVER, whisper in your ear that the
old CemeteTg Is t-ifhia a mile Of BTOIrH'S
cTeeIiI Horror Of horrors, Only think
of drinking your grandfather in solution,
And away they 90 to Stones river, nine
miles above with an engineer, at an expense
of five hundred dollars out of the City Treas
urv. 10 inquire into the practicability Of
putting enough of Cumberland river wafer
above Stones river, upon the topof an adj
iacent eminence, FIVE hundred feet high, to
supply two hundred thousand thirsty and
cleanlinen loving people, upon the present
site OF Nashville; and the army OF thirsty
explorers having. like John Gilpin, ''ieit
the wine behind" at their outset, returned
with the curt report that ''the thing can't be
did 80
..The King Of France, with thirty thousand
men,
again"
And so this foundation for "a big thing on
ice fizzled out, and the elements Of ring
for a big speculation, which had just ap-
peared above the surface, sank back,
"As light ard empty a the circumambient air.
into native nothingneSs. As the ';give-us-
pure-water" question was dying out, it was
Whispered that, about thirty years ago,
dead baby was taken ont of the reservoir,
and during last year it was published by a
correspondent of one of our city papers that
fish could not live in it, as if decent fish
would pretend to live where a baby
couldn't
s.Nature seems not to have anticipated
water-works when she was preparing this
site for a great city. The number of bold
springs within the city and its liberties is
amazing. Of these great fountains, Cock
riIIs. Trimble's, Wilson's, and blackberry
formerly 'sCollege Spring" 81 AIDED by a
large blackberry, where the college boys
slaked their thirst before reservoirs or
| cholera were heard Of-are on tie south
and west. On the north are Peck's, the
Judges (Once on the premises of Judge
| McNairy), and Pump Springs. We have
seen mills on less streams than that which
flows from Judges Spring. Besides these,
| there are, perhaps, more than hundred
springs that throw mp sparkling, cold,
sweet water. all the year round,
and not a few wells. When the Cumber-
land water gets WARN, all who are not able
or willing to buy ice, use the cold water OF
these springs and wells.
sIFvery summer, in our rounds, we drink
freely of many of these springs, and they
are a great blessing to our people.
sBesides this great abundance OF cold
fresh water. yelling up from the depths of
the earth. we have a great variety of min
eraI springs. The old French Lick, where
the French fur traders resided before Nash
vile was thought of, and where the first
settlers here made all the salt they Used-a
cold bold spring, throwing up supply Of
healing waters for million people. Then
the pure chalybeate at the eastern abut-
ment of the Suspension bridge; and in our
Immediate neighborhOod, the white sulphur
of Buena Vista, and Bosley Spring, cele-
brated for chronic diarrh0.a and nephritic
troubles.
sStOnes River and Browns Creek, our peo-
pie know. both being in the neighbOrhOOd. The |
other hundred and fifty creeks that flow into the
Cumberland, along itS five hundred miles above |
the city, no account is taken Of, they being be
yOnd their evening drives.