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Show RIVERS. Some brilliant man once referred to the Mississippi Mis-sissippi river as "the crreat sewer of the American continent." There is a certain amount of exaggeration exagge-ration in the name, but there is also a very large proportion of unpleasant truth. From the time the white man settled in the great basin of the Father of Waters, in the valleys of its hundreds of tributary tribu-tary streams in a score or more of states, it has been his custom to dump whatever waste products may have developed, into the river. The custom grew into a habit, and the habit is so fixed that it is all butv impossible to break it. The householder used the river bottom for everything he wanted to be rid of; the manufacturer never considered any other means of disposing of hi3 refuse, and cities j and towns found the streams a convenient outlet for their sewers. Xobody seemed to question the right or the wisdom of such a course until after the rivers had lost their limpid freshness and became be-came in fact streams of pollution, carrying filth upon their surface and the sand and gravel bottoms bot-toms covered with deposits unpleasant to contemplate. contem-plate. Anyone who will revisit after twenty years' absence ab-sence the scenes which cling in the memory and make the days of childhood seem all a holiday and will look upon the old swimming hole, the spot beneath be-neath the old sycamore tree which ha3 stood through all the vicissitudes of storm and flood where sunfish bit as fast as the bent pin hook could be rebaited and cast into the sparkling water, anyone any-one who will go back and view these scenes will be impressed with the mutations effected by the flight of years, and will wonder at the changes. Instead In-stead of a river of pure water literally alive with fish there is a stream from which the cows refuse to drink, and the sunfish and bas3 have given way to the chub, carp and sucker3. Xo longer will the stream seem an invitation to swim; rather is it repulsive re-pulsive to the sight and smell. The matter of river pollution is not a local one. It is well-nigh universal, and it requires considerable consider-able courage to press any measure of reform against the well-established practice. Aside from the loss of beauty the aesthete so keenly regrets there is a distinct danger to the life and health of the inhabitants of the fertile valleys accompanying the befoulment of the streams. Sewage from cities upstream does not improve the quality of drinking water to the towns downstream. Typhoid fever has appeared in towns in the central valleys within the last ten years where theretofore it was virtually unknown. As a result efforts are made to purify the water for domestic purposes by filtration and boiling. While these' measures add to the general safety to health they by no means represent an intelligent in-telligent effort to eradicate the causes which make them necessary. It will require time and stringent law3 to overcome the evils which have grown up since the earliest settlement. Happily, the need of prevention of river defilementhas defile-menthas been recognized, and a few of the states have, through their boards of health or special commissions appointed to formulate and enforce rules for the protection of the water courses, n:!.. the necessary beginning. The problem tb-y ;;r.. t, solve is a difficult one, brought on through ranee and greed. It includes not only rigid r.- .... lation of the disposal of waste materials from -.: !:,. ufactories, but also the disposal of city sowa-rr garbage. In the solution of the problem -- ,, hope of thousands for their health and han;.ii And with the accomplishment of this more pra--work, there will be n return of the sparkle m water, and the sunlight will once more glisten ,r, the surface and reflect the purity and el"a::;,,. and wholesomeness which was there for so r.ur years when the glory of the pristine for.-: hanccd the beauty of the stream. The timo U c.in. ing when man must undo the work of ma;; if is to continue upon the earth. With all the tv,,--ress of the age, the achievements of science, mechanics me-chanics and art, to perpetuate his kind, man n-yet n-yet follow the law3 of cleanliness, nnd clean iv.. must extend beyond the person to the larger : r 1 more important affairs from which he draws sustenance. In the restoration in part of the forests for-ests and the purging of the waters of the riv. r-of r-of the great Mississippi basin, laying aside fr.r time the crude notion that all that is profitable U good, and in a few years the brotherhood of m , i may gain a new significance in that the fcr-tT;.-l--hood extends to generations yet unborn. We hv. but a day, the world goes on until the fulln'-s ..f time. e. |