STAGNANT WATER, CENTRAL PARK WEST 148 I A BLIND METROPOLIS AND HER DYING CHILDREN A great problem was left for the first civilized inhabitants of New York to determine. Nature had made ample provision for the metropolis of the western hemisphere. But two possibilities were attached to its occupation by man--it could be healthy or unhealthy, at the option of the people. [Sidenote: Healthy or Unhealthy: Which?] The conditions which made for health were: two large rivers of pure water, from the mountains and the sea, flushed its shores, carrying the outflow of its waste far away seaward; its soil could be thoroughly drained; its sewerage could be so constructed as to convey to the sea all forms of domestic waste and surface filth; its southern exposure towards the ocean insured sunlight and sea breezes; its inland situation supplied to its atmosphere the life-giving virtues of abundant vegetation; the climate was temperate. The conditions which made for unhealthiness were: large areas of sodden marsh lands; a rock formation of shale, having a dip of the strata, nearly perpendicular, admitting the flow of surface water to great depths, thus poisoning springs and wells; numerous streams flowing into the rivers; large ponds of stagnant water; fierce summer heat. [Sidenote: Two Centuries and a Half Unhealthy] From the year 1622 to the year 1866, a period of two hundred and forty-four years, the people elected that the city should be unhealthy. The land was practically undrained; the drinking water was from shallow wells, befouled by street, stable, privy, and other filth; there were no adequate sewers to remove the accumulating waste; the streets were the receptacles of garbage; offensive trades were located among the dwellings; the natural water courses and springs were obstructed in the construction of streets and dwellings, thus causing soakage of large areas of land, and stagnant pools of polluted water. Later, in these centuries of neglect of sanitary precautions, came the immigrants from every nation of the world, representing for the most part the poorest and most ignorant class of their respective nationalities. This influx of people led to the construction of the tenement house by landowners, whose aim was to build so as to incur the least possible expense and accommodate the greatest possible number. In dark, unventilated, uninhabitable structures these wretched, persecuted people were herded together, in cellars and garrets, as well as in the body of the building, until New York had the largest population to a square acre of any civilized city. The people had not only chosen to conserve all the natural conditions unfavorable to health, but had steadily added unhygienic factors in their methods of developing the city. [Sidenote: A Plague-Stricken Town]