Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1878-02-26
OUR HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS.

Old Mother Symptoms prophecies, so often
quoted, consign the world to pestilence ard
famine "about this time, as Poor Richards
Almanac was wont to say; and to utter des-
truction in 1881; But, somehow, we are in
credulous of pestilences in these regions of
congratulate our fellow citizens of Carson
upon the thorough drenching and consequent
cleansing of our more drainablekstreets-tha
Is to say the streets trending from the Sierra,
eastward. These are cleaner and more free
from impurities than they have been for
years. Indeed the food of Sunday week car
ried down into the commons, a surprising
amount of trash and accumulated rubbish.
Professor Tyndall, discusssag the question of
Spontaneous Generation in highly interest
ing and exhaustive article in the Nineteenth
Century for January says: 'LeeuWenhoek es
timated the population Of a single drop OF
stagnant water at 800 600 900; probably
drop of our turbid infusion (referring to some
experiments of his own, 'would be this many
times multiplied. The field of the microscope
is crowded with organisms, some wabbling
slowly, others shooting rapidly across the mi
croscopic field They dart hither like a rain
of minute projectiles; they p;rouette and spin
so Autckly sound, that the retinal impression
transforms the little living rod into a twirling
wheel And yet the most celebrated natural
lists tell us they are vegetables. From the
rod-ike shape which they so frequently as
sumo, their organisms are called bacterea-
a term, be it here remarked, which covers
organisms Of very diverse kinds We make
these quotations to show our readers Of the
vast and voluminous material for mischief
contained in single drop OF stagnant and
impure water. In another part of the same
paper Professor Tyndall states the fact that
purified water exposed III a hayloft in the
Alpine region, revealed as much as 80 per
cent. of the TASKS containing it intiltrated
with these animalcules, while not one single
instance occurred when the same character of
water was exposed on the free mountain ledge
near the Mer de Glace-or Sea of Ice
This experiment then is an assurance to US
VINO dwell WlCnln the range OF IIle cool WHY'S
OF the Sierra that the disease breeding bacteria
which are so abundent in the low lands and
repositories of stagnant water, are compare
lively scarce in this altitude Indeed it has
long been maintained that the Asiatic cholera
never prevails where the pine tree grows.
Still, the presence of the diphtheria and the
typhorid fevers in these mountain regions IS
only too startling warning of our constant
danger from impure water in wells and drains
it being conceded that those disorders owe
their origin to the infusoria and tiltrations
seeping out of cesspools, sinks and sewers,
And this leads us to say that We hone that the
projected plan of common sewer which shall
act as a substitute for the offensive and un-
healthful surface drainage which smells to
heaven from our principal thoroughfare may
be perfected. We can, if we will, do much to
avert the fullfllment of Mother Symptoms I'M
pleasant prophesies. 1t is as true now as ever
it was that cleanliness is next to godliness.