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Updated: May 15, 2025
One of these sources of a safe and wholesome water-supply the deep flowing well, or spring; the water shut up in the mountains in its lake or reservoir; or the slow filter-bed should be used by every intelligent and progressive town of more than a thousand inhabitants. Sewage and its Disposal.
When, however, this peaty water soaks on down through the grass, roots, and leaf mold, into the soil, it comes in contact with Nature's great filter-bed the second place in the circuit where the water is again made perfectly pure. This filter-bed consists of a layer of more or less spongy, porous soil, or earth, swarming with millions of tiny vegetable germs known as bacteria.
Not only will this filter-bed, or spongy mat of bacteria, burn up and remove all traces of vegetable decay, but if the rain happens to have soaked through the decaying body of a bird or animal or insect, the bacteria will just as eagerly feed upon these animal substances and change them into harmless gases and salts.
If the area over which they are thrown is large enough, and particularly if the soil is porous and well covered with vegetation, nature's filter-bed the soil, the bacteria, and the roots of the grass and other plants combined will purify a surprising amount of waste; but there is always the danger, particularly in the wet weather of spring and of late fall, that the soil will become charged with more of these waste matters than the bacteria can destroy, and that these waste poisons will be washed down in the rain water right into the pit, or trap, which has been dug for it the well.
But some of this vegetable matter, such as we find in the water from bogs or swamps, or even heavy forests, will sometimes upset the digestion; hence, the natural dislike that we have for water with a marshy, or "weedy," taste. Nature's Filter-Bed.
So that the last step of our artificial filtration is simply an imitation of nature's great filter-bed.
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