IRESERVOIR DEPOSITS NOT HARMFUL.

IRESERVOIR DEPOSITS NOT HARMFUL.

宾夕法尼亚州费城的酋长特拉特维恩（Trautwine）声称，城市水库中的沉积物无害。这在1886年显示，当时利哈伊盆地的沉积物从其中一个隔间中取出。

The sanitary committee of the board reported that an analysis of the water covering the deposits showed no absolutely injurious ingredients. When Fairmount reservoir was emptied recently for repairs, from one to two feet of mud was found on the floor. To remove this would have cost $8,000; but it was not removed, as the bureau of health, following the counsel of its chemists and bacterial agents, was decidedly of the opinion that the cleaning was inadvisable. They argued that the mud deposited by the river water in the reservoirs was, in all probability, no more hurtful in its character than that deposited by the same water in the bed of the river itself. Unless, therefore, it were proposed to scour the bed of the river, it was difficult to see good reason for cleaning the floors of the reservoirs. Furthermore,the moment the raw river water was turned into the cleaned reservoirs, it would immediately begin depositing material of exactly the same character; and there seemed to be no reason to suppose that an eighth of an inch in depth of such material would be any less hurtful than one or two feet of it. So, also, when the small Mount Airy reservoir, 4,500,000 gallons capacity, which is filled from the Schuylkill at Flat Rock, was emptied in September, 1896, for necessary repairs to its lining, about four and one half feet of mud was found on its floor, and, as this seriously diminished the storage capacity, it was removed. Complaints were made of the oflensiveness of the mud which was temporarily deposited at the foot of the slope. On being examined by the medical inspector of the board of health, Chief Trautwine, and others, the mud was found to be perfectly inoffensive—there being present only that slight smell which is characteristic of all river mud. As a sop to the public, however, lime was sprinkled upon it. Therefore, Chief Trautwine would not, as a rule, remove the mud from the city reservoirs, “ until it attains such a depth as seriously to diminish their storage capacity."