The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1910-06-24
WHY WATER WE DRINK is
NEVER QUITE PURE.
Flow Nature Employs Small Fish, Plants
Sunlight and Oxygen in Operating a
Marvellous Filtration System.
PROF. JOHN PHIN.
(Author OF THE Of Atmosphere"
Dy PROF. JOHN PHIN.

that nature never provides for us for
very excellent reasons. The water
we use contains impurities of varying
degrees, from the poisonous liquids
of sewage and contaminated streams
and ponds to the sparkling and re-
freshing springs which afford such
pleasant drink to the thirsty traveller.
Pure water is to be found only in
the laboratory of the chemist and it
is quite tasteless and insipid. The
pleasant drinking water which gushes
from the hillside and which makes
a good well so valuable always con-
tains foreign matters. both gaseous
quite harmless, although some may
be decidedly deletecious. Conse
quently the search Of those who seek
water for domestic purposes is al
ways directed to the obtaining of
good water rather than of water that
is absolutely pure.
All the fresh water found in our
lakes, streams and springs is derived
from rain. The earth with its clouds
is really a gigantic still in which
water is raised from land and ocean
to the sky and is then precipitated in
the form of dew, rain, hail and snow.
That which falls on land is partly
raised again by evaporation, while an
other part sinks into the ground and
reappears as springs and wells or
flows in rivers to the ocean from
which much of it originally came, and
during its passage from the clouds
to the ocean it takes up solid and
gaseous matters which enable it to
supply certain important require
ments of plants and animals. In
carbonic acid, oxygen, ammonia and
other things and removes some of the
impurities which exist in the atmo-
sphere and carries them to places
where they serve as food for plants.
When we stand on the seashore and
watch snowstorm or heavy down.
pour of rain falling upon the waves
it looks at first as if the addition of
so much water to the depths which
are already there were a waste of en-
ergy and of material. But when we
reflect that every drop of rain and
every snowflake carries with it the
necessary food for the plants which
support the animal life that exists in
the great deep, We see that nature is
a series of wonderful compensations
and marvellous adjustments, and that
it is through these compensations and
adjustments that our rivers, ponds
and lakes are kept in a great measure
pure, often even in spite of the con-
Eliminating acts of men and other aAi-
mails.
The process by which this is &C
compiished is an extremely interest
ing one, and in these days when the
question of an abundant supply of.
good water is forcing itself upon the
individuals it has a practical side as
well.
The most interesting scientific dis
coyery ever made in relation to ami
NAL and vegetable life was undoubt-
eddy the revelation of their opposite
and compromising actions upon the
gases of the atmosphere. Like all
other great discoveries and inven-
lions this was not made at a single
step; it was developed gradually and
in its complete form it was the re-
suit of the labors of many workers
1t began with the discovery of car
bonic acid by Black and of the pres
ence of oxygen in the vesicles of sea-
weed by Davy, and then it was fur
Their found that animals inhale oxy-
gen and expire carLonic acid while
plants absorb carbonic acid and give
off oxygen.
That which is true Of terrestrial
plants and animals is also true of
those which inhabit the water An
instructive example of this may be
seen in any we'll balanced aquarium
where the fish and other animals live
upon the plants and breathe the oXy-
gen which the plants produce when,
by the influence of sunlight, they de-
compose the carbonic acid that is
found in the breath of the fishes,
keeping the carbon to build up their
own tissues and throwing out oxy-
gen to enable the animals to breathe
The plant, through it's roots and
perhaps its leaves, absorbs the dead
soluble matter which has been pro-
duced by decaying animal and vege-
table matter and also such soluble
mineral matter as it may require and
which happens to be present. 1t also
absorbs and decomposes the carbonic
acid that it finds in solution in the
water, and in this way we have con-