Part 11

The sulphates of soda, magnesia, lime, and the triple sulphate of alumina and potash, possess about the same preservative power; which appears to depend on the acid, not on the base of the salt. The general results of Dr. Christison’s investigations, appear to be, that neutral salts in various, and for the most part minute, proportions, retard or prevent the corrosive action of water on lead--allowing the carbonate to deposit itself slowly, and to adhere with such firmness to the lead as not to be afterwards removed by moderate agitation,--adding subsequently to this crust other insoluble salts of lead, the acids of which are derived from the neutral salts in solution,--and thus at length forming a permanent and impermeable screen in the form of a film over its surface, through which the action of the water cannot any longer be carried on. These films are composed of the carbonate of lead, with a little of the muriate, sulphate, arseniate, or phosphate of lead, according to the nature of the acid in the alkaline salt, which is dissolved in the water. The following general conclusions may therefore be considered as sufficiently established.

1. Lead pipes ought not to be used for the purpose of conducting water, at least where the distance is considerable, without a careful examination of the water to be transmitted.

2. The risk of a dangerous impregnation with lead is greatest in the instance of the purest waters.

3. Water, which tarnishes polished lead when left at rest upon it in a glass vessel for a few hours, cannot safely be transmitted through lead-pipes without certain precautions; and conversely, it is probable, that if lead remain untarnished, or nearly so, for 24 hours in a glass of water, the water may be safely conducted through lead-pipes.

4. Water which contains less than about an 8000th of salts in solution, can not be safely conducted in lead pipes without certain precautions.

5. Even this proportion will prove insufficient to prevent corrosion, unless a considerable part of the saline matter consists of carbonates and sulphates, especially the former.

6. So large a proportion as a 4000th part, probably even a considerably larger proportion, will be insufficient, if the salts in solution be in a great measure muriates.

7. In all cases careful examination should be made of the water after it has been running a few days through the pipes; for it is not improbable that other circumstances, besides those hitherto ascertained, may regulate the preventive influence of the neutral salts.

8. Where the water is of sufficient purity to act on lead, a remedy may be found, either, in leaving the pipes full of water and at rest for three or four months, or by solution of phosphate of soda; in the proportion of about a 25,600th part.[14]

Dr. Kane, however, seems to differ from Dr. Christison in opinion on this subject; for after having mentioned the crust which gradually forms on the interior of the cistern, and assists in protecting it from the oxidizing action of the air, he remarks, “no danger is therefore to be apprehended from the supply of water to a city being conveyed through leaden pipes, and preserved in leaden cisterns; for _all water of mineral origin dissolves, in filtering through the layers of rocks in its passage to the surface_, a sufficiency of saline matters to serve for its protection.”

Now, to apply these results to the water of the Croton; as this holds in solution only about one 18,000th part of salts, it must, according to Christison, exert a corroding influence on the lead-pipes. Dr. Dana, of Lowell, has lately investigated this subject and detected lead in the water which had passed through the leaden-pipes for the distribution of water in the city of Lowell. The first examination was made from a sample of water taken from the source or spring-head before it had entered the leaden pipes, when the specific gravity was found to be 1,000,18. The pint, on evaporation to dryness, yielded 2.37 grains of solid matter. The solid contents of an imperial pint were found to be,

_Grains._ Chloride of Sodium, 1.54 Chloride of Magnesia, 0.71 Sulphate of Lime, 0.128 ------ A trace of Carbonic acid, Grains, 2.378 Excess in the course of analysis .008

The second examination was made of water taken from the leaden pipes when the specific gravity was found to be 1.000.42. Upon a pint of this water being evaporated to dryness it yielded two grains of solid matter, (viz.)

Carbonate of lead 164 Grains, Organic matter and salts 038 „ --- 202 „ Excess in analysis, 002 „

It therefore has been calculated that every gallon of the water used after passing through the leaden pipes, contains 1.312 grains of the carbonate of lead. Such water, although it would not speedily destroy life, would undoubtedly be attended with injurious consequences, should its use be habitually continued.

On the other hand, Dr. Hare of Philadelphia, in reply to a letter requesting his opinion as to the action of the Schuylkill water[15] on lead pipes, states that after using the Schuylkill water for 25 years in his laboratory, he has never perceived the slightest indication of the presence of lead; and that if there had been any in the water, the re-agents which he has been accustomed to use must have rendered the impurity evident. If it be true that the Schuylkill water does not act upon the lead pipes, it would follow as a matter of course, if the doctrines above laid down be correct, that the Croton, which contains very nearly the same quantity of saline ingredients, would also exert no influence upon this metal. In cases, however, where injurious consequences have resulted from the agency of lead, the pipes through which the water was conducted, were of considerable length; suppose for example that the pipes are 4000 feet long, and three fourths of an inch in diameter, each portion of water will pass successively over no less than 784 square feet of lead before being discharged; and it would not therefore be at all remarkable, if the water were found contaminated with the lead. In this city, however, the pipes are rarely more than 50 feet in length, generally not more than 25, and therefore cannot exert so deleterious an influence as in those of greater extent. Dr. Chilton, recently inspected the Croton water drawn from the leaden pipes, by which it is introduced into the house of Mr. G. D. Coggeshall. No 421 Pearl-street in this city, and found the water evidently affected by the lead. He has also obtained similar results in several other instances. If the precaution be used, of not employing the water first drawn from the pipes for dietetic and culinary purposes, no injurious consequences would probably attend the use of water conveyed in this metal, but as this is not likely to be attended to generally, it is expedient to employ other measures to guard against its deleterious effects.

For this purpose, various means have been suggested, such as the substitution of block-tin and other metals not acted upon by water; but the most efficient, scientific, and useful, as well as the most economical, of all the plans hitherto proposed, is that introduced by Thomas Ewbank, Esq., of coating the lead-pipes with tin both inside and out. The process, which has been patented, consists simply in drawing an ordinary lead-pipe through a bath of melted tin, coated with a layer of melted rosin, which leaves a continuous deposit, of tin upon both sides of the pipe, of sufficient thickness, to effectually prevent any oxidation of the lead. These pipes have been highly recommended by our first chemists, and other men of science, as furnishing an effectual safeguard against the corroding effects of pure water This highly ingenious process, strengthens the pipe, without diminishing its elasticity, and although some small portions of the lead should escape being coated, yet the proximity of the tin, will, from galvanic action, probably prevent oxidization of the lead. As these pipes are furnished at about eight cents per pound, the usual price of ordinary lead-pipe, there can be no doubt that they will be generally adopted by our citizens,--as they have been, already, by the Corporation, in the conveyance of the Croton water, into the public buildings.

_Use of Water as Aliment._ Water is the beverage provided by nature for all animated beings. It is a vital stimulus, or one of the external conditions essential for the manifestations of life. Consequently, without it, life, at least in the higher order of animals, could not be maintained.

Considered in a dietetical point of view, water serves three important purposes in the animal economy; namely, it repairs the loss of the aqueous part of the blood, caused by the action of the secreting and exhaling organs; secondly, it is a solvent of various alimentary substances, and therefore assists the stomach in the act of digestion, though, if taken in very large quantities, it may have an opposite effect, by diluting the gastric juice; thirdly, it is a nutritive agent, that is, it assists in the formation of the solid parts of the body.

_As a diluent_, water is indispensable to the preservation of health. The body being composed of solids and fluids, there must be maintained a certain relative proportion of these, to constitute that state of system called health. In a full grown adult, the solid matter of the body, by which we mean all that substantial part of the frame which is not in constant motion in the vessels, amounts to only about one fifth of the weight of the body--Chaussier says, one ninth of the total weight, the difference, perhaps, being owing to the fact that there is a quantity of fluid combined with the solids in so intimate a manner, as almost to constitute a part of their substance. The diminution of the fluid part of the body, is the cause of an uneasy sensation, indicating the necessity of repairing the waste of fluids, which we familiarly call _thirst_. This is a sensation connected with some natural state of the corporeal functions, and altogether independent of the occasional excitement of foreign bodies, although it may be induced by these. There is a demand for a certain supply of liquid which is the result of repletion of the stomach, and the cause of our drinking at our ordinary meals, but this is different from true or spontaneous thirst. True thirst occurs, when we have been some time without taking drink, (unless the food has consisted mainly of fruits and other succulent vegetables; under which circumstances, a person may go for months without any desire for drink); when the system has been greatly excited, whether by corporeal or mental causes; when acid substances, particularly saline bodies, have been taken into the stomach; and, in short, in every condition of the system, which favors the inordinate excretion of fluids. The immediate cause of thirst appears to be a dry state of the mouth and fauces; owing to the mucus which covers these parts becoming thick and viscid, though physiologists are not agreed on this point. This may arise from the absorption of the fluid parts of the saliva; for it appears to be necessary for the due performance of the functions of the palate and the tongue, that the mucus should possess a certain degree of liquidity. The sensation of thirst is generally indicative of the necessity of a supply of fluid to the system generally; for although thirst may be momentarily assuaged by wetting the mouth, or holding a thin fluid in it--yet it can only be effectually relieved by conveying into the stomach a quantity of fluid sufficient to supply the deficiency. This supply is termed _dilution_, from the fact that the fluid is absorbed and carried into the blood, which it renders thin, and the fluids themselves are called _diluents_.

Thirst, however, does not always indicate a deficiency of fluids in the circulating mass, and the tongue and fauces are occasionally dry and harsh whilst the sensation of thirst is absent. Some individuals never experience the sensation of thirst. Mr. Alcott, who lives entirely on succulent vegetables, states that he has drunk no fluids for more than a year past, and that he never experiences the sensation of thirst--a similar case is mentioned by Sauvages, of an individual who never thirsted, and passed whole months of the hottest weather without drinking. It is well known that many warm-blooded animals such as mice, quails, parrots, rabbits, &c., drink but very little; which is supposed to be owing to the circumstance that they have very large salivary glands, and a larger pancreas in proportion to the size of their bodies. In general, as we have already remarked, thirst is indicative of diminished fluidity of the blood and when it is not assuaged by taking liquids into the stomach, or by moistening the mouth with them, or by applying them to the surface, the torment which it induces amounts occasionally almost to phrenzy, and is borne with less patience and greater difficulty than hunger; sometimes inflammation of the mouth and throat and intense fever supervene. Various circumstances connected with the ordinary condition of the body influence the sensation of thirst. Thus it is greater in infancy and childhood than in adult age, and less in old age; it is greater in women than in men; it is varied by constitution and temperament; by climate; season; the nature of the diet; exercise; passions of mind, and even by imagination. As an _aliment_, water is of prime necessity to all organized beings. As a solvent, it reduces to a fluid mass all the principles necessary for the growth of animal and vegetable bodies; which must be in a fluid form, before they can be taken up by the fine lacteal and other absorbent vessels, and thus carried to every part of the living tissue. How important then, that this universal solvent should be pure,--that it should be free from those foreign ingredients, whether of animal, vegetable or mineral origin, which, if introduced into the system, tend to disturb the functions of the various organs, and often to occasion serious derangement and disease. But besides its important office as a _menstruum_, water is perhaps the most important _nutrient_, of all those which sustain the existence of organized bodies. A great proportion of that which is drunk, is speedily absorbed by the veins, and carried into the circulation, some time before the product of the digested food is introduced by the way of the laeteals. There are numerous cases on record, where persons have lived, for a considerable length of time, on water alone. In the “Transactions of the Albany Institute,” for 1830, Dr. M’Naughten relates the case of a man who was sustained on water alone, for 53 days. “For the first six weeks he walked out every day, and sometimes spent a great part of the day in the woods. His walk was steady and firm, and his friends even remarked that his step had an unusual elasticity; he shaved himself until about a week before his death, and was able to sit up in bed till the last day.”

To the evils which result from the use of impure water, we have already alluded, although it would require far more space than has been assigned to us in this Appendix, to do them adequate justice. There can be no doubt, that the chief cause of the excess of mortality in cities, over that of the country, is to be found in the impure water, with which the former are so generally supplied, and we may confidently predict, that in consequence mainly of the introduction of the Croton River into the City of New-York, no city in the world of equal size, will surpass it in salubrity. To the operation of the same cause, we may doubtless look with confidence for a decided improvement in personal comeliness and beauty. “It is evident,” says Dr Jackson, “that the health of a whole community may be so affected by impurities in water drank by them, as to give a peculiar morbid expression to their countenances which causes the observant eye of a traveller to remark it, while he in vain endeavours to account for the phenomenon. Who has not remarked the expression common in some of our cities, as in New-York and Boston, which is called a “care worn and anxious expression.” This expression I will venture to assert, is not so much the result of “too much care,” as it is of abdominal disease, produced by the habitual and continued use of impure and unwholesome water, which has fixed upon us this morbid stamp. I do not know that the people of the cities in question, are subject to more care than those in other districts, but I do know that they use every day, in many forms, a variety of noxous ingredients, which they pump up from their wells, dissolved in the water, and which enters into every form of food and drink they use in their houses.” Mrs. Hale, also, in her excellent Manual “The Good Housekeeper,” remarks, that “hard water always leaves a mineral matter on the skin, when we use it in washing, which renders the hands and face rough and liable to chap. Does not this water, if we drink it, likewise corrode and injure the fine membranes of the stomach? The Boston people, who constantly use hard water for all purposes of cookery and drink, certainly have bad complexions, sallow, dry, and _hard_ looking; and complaints of the stomach or dyspepsia are very common among them.[16] A Salem gentleman declared, that when his daughters, who frequently visited at Boston, passed two or three weeks at a time there, he could see a very material change in their complexions. At Salem there is plenty of soft water, and the ladies of that ancient town are famed for their beauty, which is chiefly owing (its superiority I mean) to a peculiarly fair, delicate tincture of skin contrasted with the half petrified appearance of those who are obliged to drink _hard water_ always, and often to wash in it.” Such authority on this point we presume will not be disputed.

Health, however, is no less promoted by the internal, than by the external use of water; and it is to be hoped, that but a short period will elapse, before free baths will be provided at the public expense, for the use of the poor, as well as the public generally. Daily ablution should be regarded as necessary as daily food or sleep.

The advantages which soft water possesses over hard, in the thousand economical purposes of life, are too obvious to need particular remark. The lime contained in well water, renders it inapplicable to the purposes of brewing, tanning, washing, bleaching, and many other processes in the arts and domestic economy; and we believe the calculation would not be found extravagant, if we should say that by the use of the Croton water 100,000 dollars annually will be saved to the inhabitants of New-York, in the articles of soap and soda alone. When to this, we add the increased comfort and health of the citizens, from its free external and internal use,--the superior cleanliness of the streets, by the washing away of all stagnant matters in the sinks and gutters, and the consequent purity of the atmosphere,--the diminution of danger from fires, and the consequent reduction of rates of insurance, with other important advantages too numerous to detail, we shall not consider its introduction purchased at too dear a rate, even were the expenses attending it increased to double the actual amount.

We need not attempt to specify in detail the benefits which are likely to accrue to the city of New-York from the introduction of an abundance of pure water. Its value is not to be estimated by dollars and cents; though it might easily be shown, that it already saves to the citizens a sum far exceeding the annual interest on its cost. We have already referred to its superiority as a solvent of vegetable matter, over the hard well water, formerly used. Since then, we have made a calculation, by which we are satisfied that in the single items of tea and coffee, it will save to the inhabitants of this city annually, not far from 90,000 dollars. To this may be added the improvement of the public health, and the consequent saving in medicine, and physicians’ fees, a sum probably exceeding that above specified; the increase of the working days, and the extension of the average period of working ability among the laboring classes; and lastly, the moral and intellectual advancement of the entire population, attendant upon the improvement of their physical condition; each of which is not an unimportant item in the aggregate of public prosperity and happiness.

Such are some of the facts connected with this important fluid--water. So common and abundant is it in nature, that we are apt to overlook its value; but we need only be deprived of it for a season, when we shall set a due estimate upon its importance. Pure and sparkling to the eye, bland and refreshing to the taste, whether it bubbles up from mother earth, gurgles in rills, flows along in streams and rivers, or spreads out in lakes and oceans, it every where proves a blessing,--and ought to be universally regarded as one of the most inestimable gifts of Providence to man. As it is the only fluid capable of quenching thirst, so it is the only one compatible with the prolonged duration of animal life--we need not add, that as ALCOHOL, under all its combinations, fermented and distilled, is a deadly poison, fatal to organized beings, whether they belong to the vegetable or animal kingdom, WATER can in no case be improved by combining it with this deleterious fluid. It was formerly common in this city, and still is so in many places where the well-water is brackish, to modify its taste by the addition of a quantity of brandy, or some other form of ardent spirit, with a view, not only of rendering it more agreeable to the palate, but also of correcting the deleterious properties, occasioned by the salts held by it in solution. But in all such instances, the spirit which is added proves far more injurious than the small quantity of vegetable and mineral matters which it is designed to correct. To the latter, the system becomes in a manner habituated, so that even when pure soft water can be had, the former is often preferred, as is now the case with many individuals, who prefer our brackish well water to that of the Croton. But where ardent spirit is added, an artificial appetite for stimulants is soon created,--there is a constantly increasing demand for a repetition as well as increase of the dose, derangement of the digestive organs succeeds, and in a large majority of instances, the health is irremediably impaired. But fortunately, no arguments are needed in this place to convince the citizens of New-York that pure Croton water needs no corrective,--and that it is the sworn enemy of _fire_, whether in the shape of alcoholic poison, or that of the more simple element--

“Αριστον μεν υδωρ”--PINDAR.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM OSBORN, 88 William-street.

FOOTNOTES

[1] It is proper to remark that, the pier at each extremity, of the range of arches of eighty feet span, has an extra thickness, making it a pier of equilibrium; this is also the case with the one in the centre of that range of arches, so that on each shore and in the centre of the river this additional security has been given.

[2] This report was from the pen of Samuel Stevens, Esq.

[3] This Act was drawn up by Myndert Van Schaick, Esq., and its character and suitableness to obviate former difficulties were approved of by the Common Council, and the situation of Mr. Van Schaick, as member of the Senate, no doubt promoted its success.