This, however, cannot explain certain features of the purification of water by a layer of sand. The removal of color, the reduction of nitrates, and certain other changes in the organic content of the water have for a long time been recognized as due to a bio-chemical action carried on by certain bacteria in the sand. Both the straining action and this bio-chemical action are not all-sufficient for the explanation of certain phenomena, and it has been recognized, too, that sedimentation in the pores of the sand played a large part in the purification process in those cases in which it was apparent that the biological agencies were not the chief ones. In the purification of water containing only insignificant quantities of suspended matter, but a relatively large amount of unstable organic matter, it will be conceded at once that the chief factor in the purification is the nitrification produced by the bacteria in the upper layers of the sand. On the other hand, the purification by sand filters of a hypothetical water containing no organic matter, but only finely-divided mineral matter in suspension, could take place only by the physical deposition of the particles upon the sand grains. Between these two extremes lie all classes of water. In all problems of water purification by filtration through sand, both these factors--biological action and sedimentation--play their parts, assisting and supplementing each other, the relative importance of one factor or the other depending on the place of the particular water in question on the scale between the two extreme conditions just mentioned.