The Potomac River is somewhat peculiar, in that the turbidity of its waters, as shown by the results presented in Mr. Hardy's paper, ranges from 3,000 to practically nothing. The bacterial content also varies widely, and Mr. Hardy's tables show this variation to be from 76,000 to 325 per cu. cm. Such a water as this requires particularly careful preparatory treatment. The Dalecarlia Reservoir has a capacity of something like 2 days' storage, the Georgetown Reservoir the same, and the McMillan Park Reservoir nearly 3 days, making a total sedimentation of more than 7 days. Without the use of a coagulant, it is significant that during a period of five years, even with 7 days' sedimentation, the average maximum turbidity of the water delivered to the filters was 106 parts per million, and the maximum average turbidity in one month was 250 parts per million. The water filtration engineer can readily understand that waters as turbid as this cannot be treated economically and efficiently in slow sand filters. It would appear that coagulating works might advantageously have been installed at the entrance to the Dalecarlia Reservoir. If this had been done, and coagulant had been added to the water at times when it was excessively turbid, a considerably shorter period of subsequent sedimentation than now exists would in all probability have rendered the water at all times amenable to efficient and economical slow sand filter treatment. The prejudice in Washington against the use of coagulants has also manifested itself in other localities, but the results which have been obtained during the past twenty years from rapid sand filters and from slow sand filters, treating waters previously coagulated with salts of iron or alumina, have shown how thoroughly unreasonable were these objections. In this connection it is interesting to note that there are in the United States more than 350 rapid sand filter plants, and that nearly 12% of the urban population of Continental United States is being supplied with water filtered through rapid sand filters, in connection with all of which a coagulating chemical is used in the preparatory treatment. ~Table 24--Typhoid Fever Death Rates in Cities of the United States with Populations in 1910 of 100,000, or More.~ Statistics gathered by correspondence and from Reports of the Bureau of the Census, Department of Commerce and Labor, Mortality Statistics. ~Note~.--Statistics from Birmingham, Ala., Dayton, Ohio, Fall River, Mass., Louisville, Ky., Memphis, Tenn., Oakland, Cal., and Providence, R. I., are not included, as they are incomplete. Columns: A - Average for six years, 1900-05, inclusive. B - Average for five years, 1906-10, inclusive. C - Average for 11 years, 1900-11, inclusive.