Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1893-08-19
M1N1Nce.Jo JOURNAL
u. b. ODER, Editor.
FROSTBURG, MD. AUGUST 10, 1898
Water.

tor or doctors involving the sanitary
character of river water.
Mondays issue contained the follow
ing maxims Of philosophy somewhat
divergent from time-honored, rustic
notions:
No water is pure that does not flow a
reasonable distance.
Water that runs from the purest spring on
the mountain side will not fertilize land after
t flows for half mile over sandy bed.
The basis given for these two prop
ositlons is:
Because it has deposited all its fertilizng
qualities along the course of the first half
mile AT the end of that distance it is potable
water, fit for domestic purposes but it will
not fertiize the land. 1t has deposited its
deleterious or fertilzing matter on the banks,
and the evidence is to be found in the rank
vegetable growth that follows the course of
the stream for at least the distance men
toned.
The JOURNAL prefers to believe
l, That no water perfectly pure.
2, That the purest water comes from
deep wells, or springs which have their
rise in ground whose surface is unin-
habited.
3, That the nearer it is to the source
the purer it is.
And so on.
1t is not the Office of water, in or
out of streams, to "fertilize land"
Even rain contains but a very small
quantity of fertilizing stimulus, and
some authorities argue that it contains
none.
1t is the province of water to dissolve
those salts of the soil which in solution
promote the termination and growth
of the constituents Of the vegetable
kingdom all the way up from the sea-
weed to the rose.
Hence, the people in arid sections
seek irrigation for the moisture which
makes the acid and other components
. of the soil available to vegetable
nutrition. The same motive actuates
the householder VINO waters his lawn,
and who is indifferent to the character
of the water-whether it is hard or
soft, fresh or stagnant.
AS between laying down and taking
up unwholesome matters in the course
of long flows, therefore, much depends
upon the nature of the tributaries and
water shed on each side of the river.
In the most favorable case the pro
gress of publication is more likely to
be regulated by the "fall' than by
contacts with bsorbents-more by
motion than molecular diffusion.
In the least favorable, it is probable
the water will take up more poisons
than it will lay down.
The Potomac above (and below
Cumberland appears to belong in the
latter category. Hence, it seems idle
to argue that the distance of twenty
odd miles between the city and the
de6ouchment Of Georges Creek affords
sufficient flow for the washings of a
large number of worse than Augean
stables to purify themselves.
To get back, however, toward the
proof of our own propositions, let us
embody them in one statement:
The water now supplied to the people
of Frostburg was sought and utilized
because it fulfilled the only condition
of purity possible-appropriation at its
sources.
We would not believe that, to be-
come pure, it must flow "a reasonable
distance"
We did not wait to see whether it
would "fertilize land" after flowing
oyer it any distance.
On the contrary, it was long flow
overground and near the surface that
we were getting away from. 1t was a
flowing stream on a constant hunt for
"fertilizing matter"-that picked up
its discoveries as 1t ran through COW
pastures and hog-wallows and laid
them down in the human system-it
was this that droye us to look for the
rivers of life where they first emerge
from long filtration below the min
eral strata and reflect in the crystal
depths of spring and rivulet the glory
of the stars.
We took "the tide at its food" and
it has sled on to fortune"