Mr. James P. Kirkwood

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☞Mr. James P. Kirkwood,¹ the Chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Water Works, having in the course of his official labors had occasion to study deeply the authorities on the subject of pipes for conveying water, and the effects produced on the water by the material through which it might be distributed, has published a volume of 840 pages, giving the results of his investigations and the data and authorities which he has consulted. Many eminent authors are quoted from, and as a compilation the work is likely to be very useful. Mr. Kirkwood does not appear to have fully made up his own mind as to the true theory of the extent to which two quarts of water may be affected by passing through lead pipes, and is still continuing his investigation. Some of the facts cited are not quite so satisfactory as to the innoxious effects of lead pipes on the Ridgewood water as could be desired.

The Ridgewood water is remarkably pure and soft, and, moreover, for the first seven and a half miles it is conveyed in an open canal, which has a descent of only two inches per mile. Along the banks of this canal, the conditions are most favorable for the growth of marshy and aqueous plants and the production of the numerous small animals common to ponds and their margins. The death and decay of these vegetable and animal bodies will engender the nitrogenous compounds, the presence of which is most to be feared, and the use of lead pipe may prove more hurtful than in cities furnished with a less pure quality of water. This consideration gives additional importance to the necessity of completing the covered conduit to the sources of the supply. The only chemical examination of this water, after its passage through lead pipes, which has been made, is a recent one by Prof. A. K. Eaton,² of New York. From a pint of the water which had stood over night in the lead pipes, he obtained an appreciable quantity of lead, much more than he had ever detected in the Croton water under similar circumstances. The obtaining this from so small a quantity would seem to render it probable that the water may take up much more than the proportions named as hurtful, and should inspire greater caution in drawing off and rejecting the water that has stood in the pipes before using it. This should be done at least until the action of this water upon lead is better understood. By a still later examination (not yet completed) of water from the first drawing in the morning through the lead pipe, introduced within a few days, for supplying the house at the corner of Hicks and Joralemon streets, Prof. Eaton found a much less quantity of lead; but the organic matter amounted to the unusual proportion of 8¾ grains to the gallon.

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