to industrial purposes. Denaturization with a relatively large application of hypochlorite of calcium, a harmless compound now widely used in minute quantities to treat potable water, would give the water such a taste and odor as to warn against using it for drinking and cooking, and at the same time kill all possible disease germs which the water might contain.

Statistics indicate that three to five gallons per capita per day would be sufficient for the supply of potable and culinary water, but to be safe ten gallons might be allowed. To prevent waste of the drinking water and to meet its cost, it would be sold by meter measurement, at a relatively high cost.

This dual water-supply plan was not put forward for universal adoption, but to meet some of the specially difficult water problems of today and for more general adoption later on.

Taken by itself, the plan would apparently give good sanitary results, provided every householder could be compelled to take both kinds of water. If allowed a choice between the two kinds, and not at the same time compelled to abandon dangerous shallow wells in house yards, various unfortunate results might be produced. To name only two: the cheaper, more plentiful supply might be taken and the other left, and consequently polluted wells be continued in use; or the potable water alone might be chosen and thus no plentiful supply be available for bath tubs and water closets. The latter outcome would necessitate the continuance of privies, with their dangers from flies and typhoid.

From the economic or financial viewpoint, the dual supply would present apparently grave difficulties. The first cost of two water-works plants and two sets of house piping and fixtures would be much higher, in most cases, than the cost of a single system.

It should be remembered, finally, that the dual supply question was revived largely for the purpose of presenting new aspects resulting from changed

conditions, particularly the safety now possible through denaturizing and at the same time disinfecting water not intended for potable use. Under occasional abnormal conditions such a dual supply as was outlined might prove to be of great sanitary and economic advantage, but no one should advocate its adoption without a thoroughgoing investigation of first and annual costs, nor without taking into account possible resulting complications.1

The Meaning of Proposed Changes in Sewage Disposal at Chicago. No one should be misled by assertions that because sewage purification plants have been recommended by Chief Engineer Wisner, of the sanitary district of Chicago, therefore the big drainage canal is a failure. This canal was opened on January 1, 1900, after many years of work and millions of expense. In conjunction with intercepting sewers it diverts the sewage of Chicago Lake and adjacent territory from Michigan southward through the Des Plaines and Illinois Rivers to the Missisippi, at the same time reversing the flow of the Chicago River at all but highwater stages. The canal has been a great protection to the water-supply of Chicago, which is drawn from Lake Michigan through various intake tunnels leading to intake cribs some distance from the shore. The canal has also relieved intolerable nuisances of long standing in the Chicago River and its branches.

Mr. Wisner's recommendation for sewage purification at Chicago arises from the fact that the rapid increase in the population of Chicago will soon require more diluting water than the federal government will allow the Sanitary District to draw from Lake Michigan. Therefore the burden on the diluting water must be lessened by removing a portion of the contaminating matter in the sewage. A choice may be made between purifying all the sewage slightly 1 From M. N. Baker.

or a portion of it to a relatively high degree. Present indications are that the latter will be the more economical plan, and one that will give good sanitary results.

Mr. Wisner proposes settling and sludge- (solids) reducing tanks of the Imhoff type, supplemented where and when necessary by percolating or sprinkling filters. The tanks would remove considerable portions of the solid organic matter from the sewage by sedimentation and would reduce this sludge in bulk by the action of anaerobic bacteria.1 The sludge could then be further reduced in volume by drying, after which the choice of final disposal would be from one of several possible plans. Such of the partly purified sewage or effluent from the Imhoff tanks as required further purification would be passed through percolating or sprinkling filters. These, through the action of aërobic bacteria, would still further reduce the organic matter in the sewage and would leave the latter in a stable or non-putrefactive condition. A portion of the organic matter thus being kept out of the canal, the natural oxidizing powers of the diluting water would be able to deal with the sewage.

The Chicago Drainage Canal was carefully designed originally to maintain a balance between the volume of sewage which it carried and the oxidizing power of the diluting water. To the extent that such a plan succeeds the results are as truly scientific sewage treatment as when some artificial process is adopted. Among engineers, the Chicago plan is known as sewage disposal by dilution, and this, as already intimated, is often as proper a means of sewage disposal as can be found-as it generally is by far the cheapest.

Laymen generally, and for that matter not all engineers, do not realize that sewage purification is relative and not absolute, and that nearly all the sewage purification plants, the world over, are

1 Anaerobic bacteria work in the absence of air; aerobic in its presence.

being operated to prevent offensive odors and not to produce an effluent which can safely be turned into water used for drinking purposes. Such, however, is the case.2

New York Municipal Budget Exhibit. -The second budget exhibit of New York City was thrown open to the public on October 1 and continued throughout the month. In many ways it showed improvements over the one of the previous year. Not only was the general arrangement of the exhibits better, but the essential budgetary facts were less subordinated to the physical exhibits themselves. One of the most interesting phases of the exhibition was that of the finance department which displayed a series of rectangular geometrical models representing the cost of operating the departments of city government by gilded cubes and the increases asked for in 1912 budget by purple cubes. The largest cube represented the total budget expense of $174,000,000 for 1911. Allied to this was the striking exhibit of the commissioner of accounts, showing the results of his various researches by means of a large ledger of placards turned by an attendant and lighted by a searchlight.

By charts, placards, photographs and models, the problems of street pavement, sewerage and water supply were graphically represented and illustrated. One exhibit of the Brooklyn bureau of highways showed a reduction in the cost of maintaining asphalt pavements by a municipal asphalt plant from nearly seven cents per square yard to less than three cents. Plans of the Metropolitan sewerage commission for a general sewerage system for the whole city to cost $150,000,000 were shown, and details and pictures explaining the purification of the Gowanus canal in Brooklyn, probably the biggest improvement during the year, and many other phases of the sewerage question were shown by nu

2 From M. N. Baker.

merous bureaus. Construction photographs of the board of water supply and models of Croton dam formed an exceedingly fine collection. The high pressure bureau was represented by ingenious models showing the difference in height and quantity of water thrown by ordinary hydrant pressure, by steam fire engine and by high pressure service. Lighting was demonstrated in a number of ways, and the fire, street cleaning and police departments showed appropriate exhibits of device improvements.

Clean-up Crusades.-On November 8, Mayor Keller of St. Paul ordered a general cleaning up of the city and directed the citizens to do everything possible to remove unsanitary conditions. The same day was set aside by Governor Eberhart of Minnesota for conducting a special campaign in the state against the causes of fire, and the result of both campaigns was evident in improved conditions.

Last fall a general campaign for a cleaner and more healthful city was started in New Orleans by the executive committee of the Progressive Union of that city. A strong appeal was made to the citizens to assist, and thousands of pamphlets, briefly stating the provisions of the garbage, street cleaning, sanitation and other ordinances of the city, telling the householders what they are required to do and what they are prohibited from doing, were distributed. The clergy, the teachers and pupils of the public schools and even the moving picture shows were drawn into the service of the campaign.

The city waste committee of the Woman's Chicago City Club has been conducting a vigorous campaign for a better disposal of the city's waste and has been urging that the present inadequate system depending upon several departments of municipal administration be centralized under a commission. The committee has rendered valuable assistance to the departments by issuing in several lan

guages to foreign householders cards of instruction relative to the proper disposal of waste. For the same purpose, a sanitary instructor, able to talk several languages has been going directly to the homes in some districts to promote sanitary conditions.

Chicago Plans.-Chicago now has a civic beauty commission, appointed by the mayor in September, the chairman of which is Alderman Joseph F. Ryan. Its first energy has been directed against the poles which support the trolley wires, electric lights and conveyors of electricity in the city, and a strong effort is being made by the commission to enforce a uniform and more artistic type for them. In an article in the Chicago Examiner, Mr. John W. Mabbs predicts that the time will come when the ships of the world will dock at Chicago and proposed the construction of an outer harbor by means of a sea wall or breakwater about a mile and half from the shore, to extend when complete from Evanston to a point beyond the Calumet River, with piers or wharves located on the inner side of the breakwater and connected by means of tunnels with the different railway systems. He estimates that the cost of this improvement could be covered by $10,000,000. The rapid growth of the city of Chicago is reflected in the large outlay for highways and parks which now amounts to about $10,000,000 a year. In 1880 only about 200 miles of city streets were paved. Today there are about 2900 miles of highways, more than half of which are paved, and this total is extended at the average rate of ten miles per annum.

Civic Improvement in Kansas City.In October, the City Club of Kansas City in cooperation with the Commercial Club, the Medical Society, the Municipal Art League, the Real Estate Exchange, and other civic organizations of that city, launched an enthusiastic and energetic campaign for a civic center,

better public buildings, better streets, more playgrounds, better transportation facilities and a more attractive city.

An agitation was started also toward securing for the city power to establish building zones and to control its streets to the extent of creating building restrictions along them. The intention is that such control would insure to the citizens buying a home an investment protected against the encroachment of buildings that would mar the neighborhood and thus destroy the value of the home. It is claimed that if a citizen secured a location upon a street designated by the city as a residence street, with restrictions as to what kind of residences could be built thereon, he could improve the property, add to its beauty, and continue his investment with the assurance of

permanency.

Civic Commission in Minneapolis.A civic commission in Minneapolis of eleven members with William H. Dunwoody, Esq., as chairman has been created. It has engaged the services of Edward H. Bennett and D. H. Burnham of Chicago. Two features of the plans of the commission are particularly noteworthy. The first is a system of great diagonal highways, crossing at the center of the city. Of the four avenues forming this system, two already exist, a third has been definitely ordered by the city council, and the fourth, which will traverse the residential district of the city, is planned as a magnificent boulevard stretching from the business center to the shores of Lake Harriet. The other feature is a series of streets which will be connected to form an irregular ring of six or eight miles in circuit around the closely built up business district of the city to enable the traffic to go around the congested area instead of through it. As the encircling boulevard will intersect streets in densely populated districts, many neighborhood parks are included in the plan.

Comprehensive Plans in Philadelphia.-In Philadelphia, an ordinance went into force last July making it the duty of the mayor to supervise and carry into effect plans for the future development of the city; providing for the appointment and regulating the powers, duties and procedure of a permanent committee to advise, assist and coöperate with him; and granting an appropriation. The subjects for consideration by the committee extend to improvement in railroad and transportation facilities, river and harbor improvements, municipal auditorium and assembly centers, new parks, parkways, boulevards, radial avenues, location of new manufacturing sites and the promotion of Latin-American trade. The committee is to consist of the mayor ex-officio; the city controller, the presidents of select and common councils, the president of the Fairmount Park Commission, the chairman of the finance committee of councils, and ten citizens appointed by the mayor for a term of seven years. G. W. B. Hicks, was appointed as the executive head of the committee by Mayor Reyburn.

Civic League of St. Louis.-The St. Louis Civic League through its various committees, is engaged upon a comprehensive attempt to bring about improvements in the civil service, an elimination of unnecessary noises, a limitation of overhead signs, extension of the underground wire district, a higher standard of housing and sanitation, and a higher standard of milk supply. To further these ends ward committees have been organized in the various wards of the city for the purpose of studying local needs and holding public meetings to inspire the interest of the people and to stimulate suggestions respecting means and methods to improve conditions. A vigorous agitation is in progress for a closer cooperation and civic union among the thirty-two associations giving attention to the improvement of civic affairs through the creation of a central council.

The movement was inaugurated by a committee appointed jointly by the Civic League, the Federation of Civic Organizations and the Affiliated Improvement Associations.

Municipal Management of Food Supplies. If Mayor Speer of Denver suc cessfully carries out his plans, the citizens of his city will have no reason to complain about the profits that go to middlemen who supply them with foodstuffs. Mayor Speer is conducting a vigorous campaign to have a municipal market established.

The high cost of living recently led to the investigation of the city market in Indianapolis by a citizen's committee. It was reported that farmers and producers had been generally supplanted by regular grocers and commission men. The mayor sent a message to the council with recommendations looking to restoring the market to its old use as a place for direct meeting between producers and consumers. In the meantime the mayor has imported many carloads of potatoes and sold them at cost in the city market, with the result of greatly lowering the price of this article in groceries and commission houses.

A London Municipal House.-In an article in the Municipal Journal, Mr. H. E. Blain called attention to the increase in the number and vitality of organizations that are assisting the various departments of local government in London as an indication of the great activity and progress in municipal government work, and proposed that the organizations and societies associated with the various departments of the local government establish a London headquarters in a suitably located building, with separate offices, but a common library, a conference hall and club rooms. The proposal has created a great deal of interest in London municipal circles and has started a movement for a "Municipal House" which has not only the hearty

support of the local government officials, but also the active coöperation of the organizations and societies themselves. The prospect of an early realization of this proposal is hopeful.

City Plan Association in Albany.Last spring all of the civic bodies of the city of Albany joined in a cooperative movement to secure a city plan for Albany and organized the Albany City Plan Association. All members of the affiliated societies are members of the new association and its board of governors is made up of two representatives from each of the affiliated societies, two members appointed by the governor of the State and three by the mayor of Albany. The Association has prepared an ordinance providing for the appointment by the mayor of a city plan commission of seven members whose duty it shall be to employ experts to prepare a comprehensive plan for the development of the city. A company has been organized with $100,000 capital to build model cottages for working men, and it expects to erect about 100 six-room cottages each of which will be detached and provided with a garden and lawn.

The Des Moines' Civic Center.-Des Moines has the distinction of being the first city in America to realize ideas of a beautiful city on a relatively generous scale. Her "civic center," covering a space of four blocks long and three wide on both banks of the Des Moines river in the heart of the town, is now nearly completed. Four bridges have been thrown across the river, and five buildings, surrounded by beautiful parks and walks, will complete the plan. A library, a coliseum and a post office have have been built and a city hall is nearing completion. Plans for an art institute are now being made. The success of the undertaking shows that the people of Des Moines have done things under the commission form of government.