Indiana State University - Sycamore Yearbook (Terre Haute, IN)

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10 THE NORMAL ADVANCE of it as Horace did from his more simply-tilled acres. We trust that Horace did a little hoeing and farming himself, and that his verse is not all fraudulent sentiment. In order to enjoy . agriculture, you do not want too much of it, and you want to be poor enough to have a little inducement to work moderately yourself. Hoe while it is spring and enjoy the best anticipa- tions. It is not much matter if things do not turn .out well. DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE Artificial Purification of Water ELMER A. ROW Pure water is becoming more and more recog- nized as a necessity for the preservation of life and health. This conviction has been growing from the time of the earliest ancient peoples, and is every day becoming a question not alone for the chemist, but for the consumer as well. Pliny, a recognized ancient historian, devoted much space to the discussion of pure water, and other writers did likewise. Conditions in those times were not any different in regard to the quantity of water at hand than they are at the present time. Rome built nearly four hundred miles of aqueducts which supplied her population with fresh pure water from the mountains, instead of the Tiber river. TheSe must have been built at an enormous expense, many times greater than that of installing a modern filter plant, yet the Romans recognized their value, and what Rome saw the necessity of she generally obtained. Traces of the im- mense cisterns, eighteen in number, may still be seen at Carthage, which drew her water supply from springs nearly fifty miles away. This demand has grown through centuries until now we must have water, purified not only by nature, but also by mechanical means until we know absolutely that we are drinking pure water. But why be so exacting as to the quality of naturels beverage? By far the greater per cent of cases of our most dreaded fever, typhoid, may be traced directly to the presence of the Bacillus Typhosus in the water supply from which the patient used. In a great many instances the great outbreaks of cholera and plague in the far East were check- ed only when a supply of pure water was made available. These facts alone are sufficient to demand pure water for our future use. The increased demand together with the increased population has lessened the reserve supply and so has made artificial purification necessary. There are three chief methods of purifying water7 namely, distillation, pure filtration and the formation of a precipitate in the water, which is afterwards filtered off. Beside these there are various other methods which if prac- ticable have never been extensively applied. These include the aeration process, Electrolytic process and diiferent kinds of household lilters, some of which may yet be much used. The iirst three named7 however, are the ones which are used extensively and of which a brief descrip- tion will be given. The distillation process is the one which is used where absolutely pure water from a chemical standpoint is required. The method varies, but in the main consists of evaporating the raw water andipassing the steam through a coil which is kept cool by the surrounding water. From this the pure water passes into a reservoir. On account of the use to which this water is put, the ordinary apparatus for this method is a small still known as a whisky still, capable of producing from ten to twentwaive gallons per day. The use of this system is not nearly so extensive as that of the other sys- tems, principally on account of the expense at- tached to it. It is estimated that it costs about twelve hundred and fifty dollars per million a gallons, while by the other two processes water

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THE NORMAL ADVANCE 9 Selections from it My Summer in a Gardent By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER The love of dirt is among the earliest of passions, as it is the latest. Mudpies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty we are pure. Fondness for the ground comes back to a man after he has run the round of pleasure and business, eaten dirt and sown wild oats, drifted about the world, and taken the wind of all its moods. The love of digging in the ground tor of looking on while he pays another to dig is as sure to come back to him as he is sure, at last, to go under the ground, and stay there. To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds and watch their renewal of life, this is the commonest delight of the race, the most sat- isfactory thing a man can do. g: l: at t Let us celebrate the soil. Most men toil that they may own a piece of it; they measure their success in life by their ability to buy it. It is alike the passion of the parvenu and the pride of the aristocrat. Broad acres are a patent of nobility, and no man but feels more of a man in the world if he have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the sur- face, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property. And there is a great pleasure in working in the soil apart from the ownership of it. The man who has planted a garden feels that he has done some thing for the good of the world. He belongs to the producers. It is a pleasure to eat the fruit of ones toil, even if it be nothing more than a head of cabbage or an ear of corn. One culti- vates a lawn even with great satisfaction; for there is nothing more beautiful than grass and turf in our latitude. The tropics may have their delights, but they have not turf, and the world without turf is a dreary desert. The original, Garden of Eden could not have had such turf as one sees in England. The Teutonic races all love turf; they emigrate in the line of its growth. To dig in the mellow soileto dig moderately, for all pleasure should be taken sparinglyaais a great thing. One gets strength out of the ground as often as one really touches it with a hoe. Antaeus tthis is a classical articlel was no doubt an agriculturist; and such a prize fighter as Hercules couldntt do anything with him till he got him to lay down his spade, and quit the soil. It is not simply beets and pota' toes and corn and string-beans that one raises in his well-hoed garden; it is the average of human life. There is life in the ground; it goes into the seeds and it also, when it is stirred up, goes into the man who stirs it. The hot sun on his back as he bends to his shovel and hoe, 0r contemplatively rakes the warm and fragrant loam, is better than much medi- cine. The buds are coming out on the bushes round about; the blossoms 0f the fruit trees begin to show; the blood is running up the grape vines in streams; you can smell the wild flowers on the near bank; and the birds are fly- ing and glancing and singing everywhere. T0 the open kitchen door comes the busy house- wife to shake a white something and stands a moment to look, quite transfixed by the de- lightful sights and sounds. Hoeing in the garden on-a bright May day7 when you are not obliged to, is nearly equal to the delight of go- ing trouting. Blessed be agriculture, if one does not have too much of it. All literature is fragrant with it, in a gentlemanly way. At the foot of the charming olive-eovered hills of Tivoli, Horace tnot he of Chappaquaa had a sunny farm; it was in sight of Hadrianls villa, who did land- scape gardening on an extensive scale, and probably did not get half as much comfort out

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THE NORMAL ADVANCE a . 11 ym can be produced practically as pure from a sanitary standpoint, at less than one hundredth of this cost. Also, freshly distilled water is not pleasant to the taste and is condemned by many, though after standing for some time it usually loses some of its disagreeableness. For these reasons it is not thought practicable to supply cities by this means except Where other methods fail. Gibraltar derives her water from huge cisterns filled during the rainy seasons, yet a distillation plant is ready at any time to furn- ish water from the sea. The vessels of the United States navy all use distilled water for two reasons. First, it is pure and sanitary and the physical condition of the men proves its worth. In the second place coal Will furnish enough heat to distill from seven to nine times its own weight of water, hence it is cheaper to carry the coal than water, as all unnecessary weight is cast aside in a ship of war. The second system is known as the English filter bed system. It is the oldest method, and, according to the quality of water produced, is probably the cheapest. It requires no expen- sive machinery and is easily constructed and cared for. In general it is a large shallow reservoir having as its bottom severalvlayers of tiltering material, under Which is a suitable drain to lead the purified product off to a stor- age basin. These reservoirs vary in size from one-half to two acres in area, though the ten- dency at the present time is to have smaller reservoirs and a greater number of them. In warm climates Where there is no danger of freezing they are left open, but in places Where the mean J anuary temperature is below freez- ing, they are usually covered With a cement roof. The method of building these reservoirs varies With local conditions. Some are built of dirt, usually lined With brick, others are built of cement7 Which is probably more commonly used now. The sides are not built straight but are grooved horizontally in many ways to pre- vent the water from washing out a regular course straight down to the outlet. The total depth is regularly not more than ten or twelve feet. The bottom layer is sometimes composed of ordinary drain tile, laid side by side in rows With open joints. It is evident that this would permit of an easy escape of the water. In other plants these are replaced by lines of six- inch pipe laid about one foot apart. The suc- cessive layers of filtering material that are used , by one of the water companies of London are as follows: coarse gravel, nine inches; fine gravel, nine inches; coarse sand, twelve inches; fine sand, thirty-six inches. On top of this the water to be filtered is allowed to stand forty- eight inches deep. These layers, of course, vary much, but in the main are similar to the ones mentioned. The analysis of water may Show that a deeper layer of sand is necessary. The water passes. slowly down through these layers, leaving most of the suspended matter on the surface of the first one. This suspended matter forms a slimy mass called ttzoogloea jelly;y Which gathers bacteria and other impurities not actually suspended in the water. F rom this it Will be seen that a filter bed Which has been in use for some time would do better work than a new one, and this is always the case for this layer of 4tzoogloea jellyh is the main factor in taking out bacteria. This fact gave the build- ers of these plants much trouble at first be- cause they could not make them produce as pure a water as the old ones did. Whenever the layer of slimy material becomes too thick it Will not allow water to pass through; then the reservoirs must be emptied and cleaned. The dirt forms a hard crust Which is easily broken up, lifted 0E the sand layer, and carted away. This must be done about every two weeks, depending upon the amount of sediment in the water. Usually before being run into these reservoirs the water is allowed to stand for some time in a settling tank to take out the heavier particles. The cost of constructing these filter beds varies very much. The probable average cost, however, for the open kind is about forty thousand dollars and for the closed sixty five thousand. The cost of maintaining a plant of this kind is not large, so that the esti- mated cost per million gallons of pure water is from two dollars and hfty cents to four dollars.