Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-04-15
advent of mining, as well as agriculture, in

IhE
Upon another subject desire to say few
words. Has the public health of this city
been affected by mining operations in the
first place; and second, if it has, has 1t been
affected by this defendant! 1t is rather SIX
rular thing that the State Board of Health,
organized in 1901 think it was organized
about that time-never discovered that the
public heslth was impaired by mining debris.
That Board was well organized, with Secre-
tary paid an annual salary by the State
DIR. Logan, Secretary for q number OF years,
and after his death DR.. Hatch, both residents
OF Sacramento. That Board has made, l
think, some five biennial reports, and they
have considered the subject of the public
health most thoroughly. They have examined
everything which appeared to them to
be cause affecting the public health,
as it was their duty to do, not conhniug
themselves to Sacramento. They have COM
pared Sacramento with other places, and have
examined into the health of Msrysvil.e. Stock.
ton. San Francisco, Los Angeles, and many
other cities and towns of the State. They
have considered the causes which produce
what are called zymotic diseases, or those dis
eases produced by filth. And it has never
occurred to any of these learned physicians
and shrewd observers. in their investigations,
until at the trial of this case, to even suggest
that mining debris was one OF the causes of
ill-health. one of the causes of malaria, or Of
typhoid fever, either approximately or re-
motely. They have considered the subject eft
the sewerage Of this city. They have criti-
cised its sewerage, as well they might. They
nave criticised its cesspool system. as well
they might. They have called public atten-
ton to everything they knew upon the SUBJ
iect, vet neither they nor anybody else ever
dreamed before that mining, and the mining,
especially, of this defendant, was responsible
for any supposed difference in the health in
this CITY in these days, as compared with
former days. Now, the fact is that
the health of this city has not been
deteriorated, and it is wonderful that
it has not; and it is owing to the
salubrity of our climate and to other oircum-
stances, ana little, if any at all, to any efforts
made by those having the subject in charge
as public officers or as citizens. This city has
been and is healthy in spite of adverse cir
cumstances, and debris is not one of the ad-
verse circumstances. In the testimony upon
this subject plaintiffs counsel seized upon a
little fact, which appeared in the testimony
of DIR. Hatch. They found in one of his re-
ports covering the period of year from the
spring of 1879 to the spring of 1880, during
which there had been an overflow of por-
ton of the lower part of the city, that there
had been twenty-five deaths from typhoid
fever. All general information upon this
subject is that typhoid is fever that prevails
neutrality-suspicious. to excess in the most
healthy-situated places, in the country as
well as in cities, in cold climates and in warm
climates. Sometimes from causes that can
not be understood it is more prevalent than
at other times I will cali attention to the
report of Dr. Montgomery of 1860, which is
in evidence, and to one fact there stated
which completely refutes the inference sought
to be drawn from the item in DR.. Hatch
report Of 1880. This report is based
upon close observations of the causes
of disease in this city at that time.
1t was made to the city authorities, and is
very instructive on very many poiLts but II
will not be justified now in referring to any
thing more than this one prominent feature.
The population of the iii was then hen 10 600.
Court will remember, we had the dry winter,
in which only 7.7S inches of rain fell. La the
following year, from April, 1864, to April,
1865, there were in this city % deaths from
typhoid fever, 10 deaths from diarrhGi
and % from scarletina. making 90 deaths
from the three diseases which are
imputed generally to bad drainage or
like causes. In the year preceding
there were only nine deaths from typhoid
fever, FIVE from diarrhoea and five from scar
let fever. When we come to compare the
statistics of mortality we find that the health
of this city has not deteriorated, but that it
has improved gradually; it has improved in
every respect. Instead of this vicinity be-
coming depopulsted," as counsel have said,
or partially depopulated, it has steadily in
creased in population, and it has increased in
health, and it has increased in everything
which contributes to its permanent and ma
terial prosperity. 1t requires pretty thorough
search for man to find in the environs of
this city any such striking results of the de-
posit of debris as would justify these predic-
lions of depopulation. But it was necessary
to adopt some theory, and plaintiffs assert
that the health of the people of this
city has been affected because
this barren, unfruitful and sandy
product of the mines has been deposited on
land which was tat and rich in all the ma
terisls that bring forth the products of the
earth, and that these deposits produce ma.
laria and fever as well as render the soil
sandy and unproductive. From the very
nature of these deposits, if they are the bar
rem sands plaintiff says they are, none of
the elements of malaria exist in them {; and
yet they have found physicians to express
the opinion that this sand contains the ele-
ments of malaria. Do we believe that? If
they do, they contain q very much less
quantity of that element than the rich soil
of these river bottoms in their natural state.
THE SOIL WATER.
But they say there is another reason why
it affects the health of the city. and that is
that the subterrsuean water has been raised,
or that the soil water, in other words, has
been increased in quantity, and that you
find it now at less depth than formerly.
[ can readily believe that in some portions
of the city there is more soil water than
side of the city, where they say it has
affected the productiveness of agri.
cultural lands, it is not so. About seven or
eight miles above here, at as good place as
could have been selected for making expert.
ments in that direction-on level piece of
alluvial land Immediately on the borders of
the American river, and where the river is
filed up some ten or twenty feet in front of
the land-Mr. Wells, the owner, who has re-
sided there ever since 1858, says that it has
not been raised particle. They produced
j ohn B. Taylor, owner of land about six
miles further above, for the sole purpose of
proving that the water in his well, which
was a mile from the river, was raised now
above its former level We had an accurate
survey made of his land. and it was shown
that the bottom of his well was above the
level of the water in the river, and it ap-
peared from that and other causes that the
rise of the water in his well could not be i'm
puted to the river at all, but that it was due
to local causes in the neighborhoo6, which the
testimony in part explained. Mr.. Fern, who
lives below here. has ranch of l20 acres,
fronting sc rods on the river and running
back about mile, with width of about 100
rods in the rear. He has lived there since
1852. Twenty-Five acres of this land is what
they call high land on the bank of the river,
the remainder being tule. He tells us that
the soil water in his land has not been raised
by the Sacramento river, although it has been
raised from other causes-causes entirely in
dependent of debris, or of any deposit in the
river that he gets his well water by boring
down about Is feet and gets hard water-not
the soft water of the river. He admits that
. portion of his cultivatable land has been in
iured but says il has not been injured from
any other cause except from back-water from
the tule basin, which covers the rear part OF
mis- land that the tule basin fills with water
more now than it did in the early days, snd
he gives the reasons for that. This vast plain,
that ranges from here for twenty miles to the
foothills, has its drainage in that tule
basin below this city. One OF its largest
natural drains is Willow slough, and Mr.. Fern
;ells US that slough discharges more water
low than it did formerly. There is no min
ng on that slough and no debris from mining
aver reaches it. He says that he lived there
ipce 1852, and that those tule lands had been