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J : ES : March, 1914 en on board direct from lakes or riv- ers absolute safety can be assured only by efficient treatment of the wa- ter before it is used for drinking pur- poses. ' There are a number of methods of water purification which are recog- nized as being efficient, but mechanical construction, cost of installation and operation, desired amount of supply, and many other factors will greatly influence their practical applicability to ship use. Some method which can be easily applied, which is not too ex- pensive, which is efficient, and which does not have to depend to any great extent on the human element for op- eration, should be selected. There is no better purifier of water than heat, and as it is available on prac- tically all vessels, some form of appar- atus which uses this as the active principle would be the most feasible. A distilling apparatus meets all re- quirements, but it is not necessary to distill water in order to render it safe--boiling is sufficient, and there are several: devices on the market which operate on the latter principle and are constructed for ship use. The ordinary engineer could no doubt de- vise some scheme of his own whereby the water would be raised to the proper temperature either before go- ing to the tanks or before delivery to drinking points. Practically auto- matic operation, however, is a very necessary requisite, in order to avoid the possibility of carelessness or neg- ligence on the part of some one. Ozonization is a method which is rapidly coming into general use and there are various satisfactory ozon- izers made for application to ships' water supplies. Filters Condemned Filters are to be -condemned. Though many accomplish mechanical cleansing, very few can be depended upon for the constant and complete removal of harmful bacteria, and those types which are efficient are not con- structed to meet the demands of a vessel's water supply. The sand and gravel type of rapid filter is frequently seen aboard ship, but though appli- cable to municipal use, the manufac- turers themselves admit that filters of this class for ship use cannot be depended upon always to' deliver safe water. For one thing, frequent clean- ing is necessary and this is a precau- tion which can very easily be neglect- ed so that often the filtered is much more dangerous that the raw water. As to the method of intake now in general use, though no doubt ob- jectionable, it is not directly harm- ful if the water is properly treated supplies in the ports visited. THE MARINE REVIEW before it is used for drinking pur- poses. If the water is not treated, the method is decidedly dangerous and should be abandoned. Under any circumstances, a change should and can be easily made. A separate in- take device, which can be raised above the water line when not in use and so be free from pollution while in harbors, and a separate pump and pipe line to be used for filling tanks only, would meet the necessary re- quirements. The practice mentioned before of taking water from directly overboard for personal toilet use should be aban- doned, as it exposes crews and passen- gers to the danger of infection. Peo- ple cannot be depended upon to stop and inquire if this or that water is intended for drinking, so it is im- perative that no water, unless it comes from the drinking water sys- tem, be accessible for this purpose. Water from Municipal Supplies One of the best ways for vessels to avoid the dangers of 'uncertain sources and of contamination by faulty intake systems is always to get their drinking water from the municipal Most of our large cities have adopted meas- ures to provide safe water and ships can easily take advantage of the op- portunities thus afforded. Such things as tank capacity, number of people carried, length of trips between ports, etc., must be taken into consideration, but no doubt many vessels will find that the cheapest and easiest way to solve the problem will be to so increase their tankage that they can depend solely on municipal supplies for drink- ing water. There will then be no necessity for communication between sea cock and tanks, as the latter can be filled by attaching hose to city connections on the water front. There is another question which has a direct bearing on the one of pure water supply, and that is the disposal of ship sewage. The present prac- tice is to discharge all sewage from toilets directly overboard. Though the point that the amount of general pollution of waterways by ships is small in comparison to that by cities is well taken, it cannot be denied that in many instances sewage from ships may do a great deal of harm. As mentioned before, there are certain definite lanes of travel up and down which hundreds of ships pass, dis- charging their sewage as they go, so that the possibility of a ship taking on human filth along with her drink- ing water, if she happens to be follow- ing fairly close in the path of an- other vessel, is not so remote as one 87 might suppose. Aside from the dan- ger to one another, the promiscuous discharging of sewage by ships is very often a decidedly grave danger to cities. In the case of some Gf our lake cities, the water intakes are so placed that ships frequently pass very close to them. It can be readily seen that a large vessel coming into port with several thousand people aboard may cause highly concentrated pollu- tion of the area from which the city draws her drinking water. In Chica- go, at least, this danger has been rec- ognized and the health department is requiring vessels which use this port to install carrying devices, so that no sewage may be discharged within a certain distance of the intakes or while in harbor. Sewage tanks are being installed on the ships of one of the Chicago lines. Each tank accommo- dates gne, two or three toilets. Their capacity is rather limited--the largest being only 12 x 44 inches--and, there- fore, necessitates frequent emptying. They are designed as temporary car- riers only, the raw sewage to be dis- charged when the ship is out in the lake, and by no means meet the prop- er requirements, but they are at least a step in the right direction. Phere is ample steam on most vessels, so that a tank or tanks somewhat of this type could no doubt be devised in - which steam could be used as the sterilizing agent and the sewage effi- ciently treated before discharge, there- by doing away with any danger irre- spective of the place of ultimate dis- posal. _ Sewage Disposal on Ships From the foregoing facts and state- ments relative to water supply and. sewage disposal on ships, it may be seen that the present existing condi- -- tions can be improved with compara--- tive ease if proper co-operation and effort are made by the shipping peo- ple. The question of ship sanitation is important not only from a public health standpoint, but from a com- mercial one as well, for the public at large is beginning to take a genu- ine interest in such matters, and the companies affected by the outbreaks mentioned in this article can vouch for the fact that a ship which exposes her crew and passengers to unneces- sary dangers receives unenviable ad- vertising. The new municipal ferry boat, Wil- liam J. Gaynor, was launched from the yard of the New York Ship Build- ing Co., Camden, N. J., on Feb. 7. She is 330 ft. long, 54 ft. beam and is fitted with triple-expansion engines and Babcock & Wilcox water tube boilers.