" Within a few years," says the Report, " it has become common in

Boston, and the vicinity, to bore for water, and to make what are called Artesian wells. But no certain or valuable result has grown out of these endeavors.

There are 33 bored wells, only two of which are stated as furnishing soft water. The same remarks will apply to the public wells of this city, the most of which produce nothing but hard and brackish water, and none of which is sufficiently

soft to authorize its use in washing clothes," &c. Lake Water is a collection of rain, spring and river water, usually more or less contaminated with putrefying organic matter. It is generally soft, and when filtered, is as good and wholesome as any other description of waters. Though lake water cannot be characterized as having any invariable qualities

yet most of the Lakes of the United States, especially our great ones, afford a very pure water. In many of our smaller lakes the water is more or less stagnant, and of course very unhealthy. Marsh Water. This is analogous to lake water, except that it is altogether

stagnant and is more loaded with putrescent matter. The sulphates in sea and other waters are decomposed by putrefying vegetable matter, with the evolution of sulphuretted hydrogen ; hence the intolerable stench from marshy and swampy grounds liable to occasional inundations from the sea. Marsh water cannot be drunk with safety either by man or beast.

Tests of the usual impurities in Common Water.