Area of Indianapolis (not including ground unimproved) 5,000 acres. Within the city limits there are: Surface dug wells 15,000 Driven wells 5,000 Open privy vaults 22,000 Privy vaults filled up 13,000 Cess-pools 10,000 Cess-pools filled up 5,000 The builders of the city state, that in the business portion of the city, it is not uncommon to discover from three to a half dozen old privy vaults, in making a single excavation for an ordinary building. According to the above estimate which is considered very low, 50,000 privy vaults and cess-pools are constantly filling the soil with deadly poisons, and polluting the water of at least 15,000 surface dug wells, which furnish drinking water to 50,000 people. Not more than 6,000 persons drink water from the city water works, and about 20,000 persons use water from driven wells and cisterns. It is a rule well established by eastern boards of health, that a dug well drains a circular area with a radius equal to twice the distance of the depth of the well. It has been ascertained, that a very large number of the wells of the city are situated within an average distance of less than thirty feet of cess-pools and privy vaults, while a great many are distant from them not over ten feet. Most wells are dug simply with the view of obtaining water and of having it as convenient to hand as possible; the cess-pools are dug similarly, with a view to convenience except that the demand here is that the liquid contents shall readily drain away. Provided the well furnishes an abundance of water, and the cess-pool allows the liquid refuse to soak away, and on this account, seldom requires cleaning out, there is little concern as to what goes on unobserved beneath the surface of the ground. In the course of time the well water is discovered to be impure, after sickness, and perhaps death, have followed its use. Wells situated on street corners in close proximity to the catch basin of the sewers, are extremely liable to pollution from leakage from the foul gutters and seepage from the catch basins. A notable outbreak of typhoid fever occurred in Louisville, in the autumn of 1875, from the use of wellwater contaminated by a privy in an adjoining school yard. The water was found to be impure, and the well was condemned. “In the summer of 1878 some forty persons in Rochester whose supply of drinking water was derived from a certain well, were taken sick with typhoid fever and other zymotic diseases.” The health officers closed the well and the people got water from other sources. They began to recover immediately.