Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-10-20
lanrdstrr ftltelhgencer.
THUR sDAY EVENING, OCT. 20, 1881
The Water Supply Of the Future.

THUR sDAY EVENING, OCT. 20, 1881.
The Water Supply Of the Future.
What are we all going to do some of
these days in the near future for water ?
We are troubled not only by a scarcity
of water, but by its impurity. In these
times of drought our streams run low
and wells give out; farmers haul their
water in barrels aad mayors of cities pro-
claim to their people the need of econo-
my. This trouble about quantity will
not affect us every year as it does this
year, because we will not always have
such dry seasons !; but as population in
creases and manufacturing industries
grow, there will yearly be a greater de-
mand for water, and sometime in the
future we can easily foresee that even in
seasons that are not unusually dry we
will cry formore water, and call in vain,
unless we have some other resource than
our running streams, which are them
selves decreasing in volume with the
destruction of the timber that serves
to precipitate the moisture from the
clouds, and causes the genial rain :;
at least so the scientist say, and give
good reason for their opinion, which is
in accordance with our own observa-
tion.
The mayor of our own town prOphesies
that in ten years we will use every drop
of water that the Conestoga carries; and
even now the city of New York, which
has borne to it daily through a costly
aqueduct ninety-five millions of gallons,
all that it can get out of the great stretch
of country that it drains many miles
away, is calling for more which it cam
not get without building new aque-
duct and finding new sources of supply.
They talk of utilizing the salt water
that flows by their docks for other than
drinking purposes which seems very
obvious and easy resource, until it comes
to be considered that it would involve
another set of pipes all through the city,
and expensive pumping and that the
salt water would not he Of much use if
they had it, for it cannot be used for
steam purposes and is Objectionable even
for putting out fires, since the salt would
add fuel to the flames.
The impurity Of the water grows with
its scarcity and the increasing sluggish
ness of the streams and it comes too
from the sewage systems of our towns,
which pour all their filth into the streams
OF wash it down into the crevices of the
rocks where flow the waters that form
our wells and springs. 1t is no longer
safe To drink well water or spring water,
even ut many miles distance from city !;
and the hydrant water can only be taken
down in calmness in the ignorance that
is bliss if we were wiser we would die
athirSt.
And what are we going to do about ii ?
How are we going to secure pure water
and enough OF it? There is no great
trouble about it, The clouds pour forth
rain abundantly, and il we but saved
what they give us, we would have their
pure distilled water in any quantity.
Our foreiathers, before they were smart
enough 10 conceive reservoirs and water
closets, built cisterns and drank rain
water. Might it not be well for Us to
abate :! little Of our greater cunning and
60 back to the simple idea of catching
and saving pure water when it is sent to
us, instead of waiting till it washes
away the impurities Of the earth and we
can pump up into reservoirs the little of
it that we find in our rivers? Sometimes
we find that We are not SO smart after all
as We thought we were and this eX-
perience is getting to lie a very common
one with us. We have so many fine
modern inventions that cause us to think
cOntemptuousiy Of our stupid ancestors !;
and congratulate ourselves that we live
in such 4 wonderful age of Improvement.
We are making 80 many discoveries in
medicine but nevertheless people die as
fast as ever and two new diseases spring
up for every old one that is Strangled :;
and we have not learned even to
help man with Il bullet in him.
Steam comes. and hurries men along
to their graves and here is our
latest pet. the electric light, burning
down our houses and striking dead our
people. Yet in all the long list of pre-
sumable improvements, certainly none
are so absurd rs that series which has
reduced lis to scanty supply of impure
drinking water. If we must continue
our present sewage system contamin.t
ing the waters of the earth, then we
must abandon our reservoirs and even
our wells rs the sources of our supply of
drinking water. For fire and business
purposes it will doubtless be cheaper to
provide the needed water 10y using that
of rivers rs long rs they last, though in
towns that have the ups and downs of
Lancaster it would seem to he quite
practicable to construct great reservoirs
in the lowest places. and to feed
them through pipes that lead ulti-
mately up to the roof tops; and from
these cisterns pump the water back
again. Maybe when the ten years of
grace are passed that our mayor gives us
before the Conestoga runs dry, we may
have to contemplate some scheme of
this kind. But meanwhile let us each
be wise enough to secure pure drinking
water bv building q capaciOuS cistern