years, so as to afford a free flow for the water, but as this work is clearly the duty of the several riparian owners, and can readily be enforced by the local board of health, it is unnecessary to recount these details here.

The suggestion has also been made that a certain amount of water should be delivered through a pipe into the head of the "elbow " from the ponds above the dam L or K of the powder company. I regard this proposition as entirely inadequate to afford practical relief, since the volume of water required to induce proper motion in the former channels is vastly greater than a pipe of even twenty inches diameter would deliver under a head of ten feet and a length of four hundred feet. Such a pipe would discharge about 1,300 cubic feet per minute, which would cause in only one channel, forty feet wide and two feet deep, a current of less than one-fifth mile per hour, but which would, on the other hand, represent about twenty horse-power, is discharged through a good turbine under the same head. This volume of water, which would not suffice to create sufficient motion in the various old channels, is thus seen to have a large commercial value under the existing conditions; and hence any such expedient, even if obtained gratuitously, can only be regarded as an auxiliary to some more effective plan.

With respect to the cost of executing the two different plans submitted, it is my opinion, that the first will prove much cheaper than the second, and that it will, therefore, be more advantageous for the railroad company to build a small tunnel or culvert, than to cut through their high embankment and construct the necessary abutments, bridge, dams and weirs involved in the second plan, provided that the question of water privilege before mentioned can be satisfactorily arranged. I would accordingly recommend, that if executive orders be issued based upon the second plan for securing relief, the parties affected by such orders be permitted to offer to the State Board of Health, within a reasonable period of time, an alternative plan for drainage, accompanied with proofs that all obstacles to the carrying into effect of such drainage have been removed; such alternative plan to be equivalent in its effects and results to the executive orders, which may rapidly be framed so as to admit thereof and to refer the ultimate decision as to the mode of execution to your Board.

Respectfully submitted,

ROCHESTER, September 9, 1882.

EMIL KUICHLING,
Civil Engineer.

The result.-The first conclusions of the Board and the accumulated information in three successive years have resulted in a satisfactory agreement and acceptable specifications of work which the railroad corporation undertakes on its part to execute, and which the proprietor of the flatlands as well as the owners of the hydraulic franchises have accepted and undertaken to aid in view of the general result sought by the introduction and regulated discharge of an abundant flow of water that shall be introduced from the river at the eastern extremity of the existing chain of pools, all the parties concerned in giving effect to this much desired work have agreed that the inlet from the

Map Showing Stagnant-Water Channels of the Hoosic River at the Village of Schaghticoke, N. Y. Sept. 9 1882.

E. KUICHLING, Del.

river shall be made at a point sufficiently far eastward to give five and a half feet head for the inlet which will extend one hundred and thirty feet beneath the embankment; thus the recommendations made in the Board's final report as well as in conclusion second of its first report, are to be carried into full effect; and the inlet from the river is to command greater advantages than were in the last engineer's report, dated September 9, 1882. This increased advantage is by concessions made for the public welfare by the owners of the hydraulic franchise at the place of the artificial inlet.

(b) Obstructions in the Hudson river at the village of Fort Edward.— Another instance of obstruction in river channels is seen in the Hudson river at Fort Edward, in Washington county, where vast accumulations of saw-dust, are thrown into the current from numerous saw-mills above the village. These huge deposits of organic matter have gradually begun to decay, particularly in times of drought, and continue to emit intensely disagreeable odors and gases, for which reason they should be removed as a nuisance, and through which they are probably detrimental to the public health. In this case the necessity of providing carefully framed laws relating to the preservation of the purity of our public waters becomes apparent, and the attention of all who are interested in the welfare of this great Commonwealth is herewith directed to the devising of such general enactment as will protect and promote the public interests, and, at the same time, interfere as little as possible with the prosecution of private industries, or the constitutional privileges of every individual. The nature of the complaints preferred by the citizens of Fort Edward, together with an account of the present condition of the river at the village and a plan for securing relief, may readily be gathered from the series of documents presented elsewhere in this report.

(c, d'and e) Obstructions of ditches and streams in the towns of Schodack and Oneida Castle, and in the town of Perrinton, Monroe county.Among the numerous other complaints of malaria caused by obstructions in water-courses, and which have been investigated by the committee on drainage, sewerage and topography, the cases submitted by the health authorities of the villages of Schodack, in Rensselaer county, and Oneida Castle, in Oneida county, and of the town of Perrinton, in Monroe county, may prove of interest, as they can be selected as representatives of many similar cases where public nuisances on a comparatively small scale have been created and maintained by the negligence of powerful railroad corporations, and where direct methods of securing the abatement of such nuisances do not appear to be available or made use of by the local boards of health of small communities.

During the construction or improvement of any important line of railway, the subject of drainage usually receives very subordinate attention from the engineers, and the matter is generally left for adjustment until after the road is completed, when the engineers will have more time to properly study the various problems. The officers of the corporations, however, then commonly reduce expenses by dismissing most of the engineering employees who, from a residence in the locality, have become familiar with certain omitted drainage problems; and in the multiplicity of duties imposed upon those who may be retained, it is not surprising that many of the lesser cases become forgotten

altogether, and are recalled to mind only after long-continued neglect has developed them into really dangerous nuisances. Upon presentation of complaint by the local authorities, the subject generally receives little attention from the company, and the evil is either only temporized with, or else remains untouched until it reaches more formidable proportions, when the patience of the community is exhausted and an appeal for aid and protection is made to the Governor. Such is commonly the history of those cases from which the particular instances here referred to have been selected as illustrations. The following papers are sufficient in each case to explain the difficulty and the corresponding simple remedy:

To His Excellency ALONZO B. CORNELL, Governor of New York:

The undersigned residents in the town of Schodack, in a district about one mile south of the village of Castleton, respectfully represent to you that their families are now suffering and have for a few years past been suffering from miasmatic sickness, caused by obstructions to the natural drainage of a small district which lies between the upland and an embankment upon which the Hudson River railroad is built, and having appealed in vain to the town authorities to take proceedings for the abatement of this evil, now respectfully petition you to require the State Board of Health to investigate these causes of suffering, and to report the same to you for such action as shall be justifiable under the law.

And your petitioners will ever pray.

(Signed)

B. CLAPPER,

J. D. SMITH,

CHAS. H. SMITH,

STEPHEN CALLANAN,
J. E. COLLINS,

SCHODACK, November 25, 1882.

ALFRED VAN WORMER,
JOHN P. GROAT,
WM. PALMATEER,
J. L. COONLEY,
PETER COONLEY.

Careful examination of the locality was made in company with an engineer, who reported as follows:

To State Board of Health':

ALBANY, November 29, 1882.

Agreeably to your request, and in company with yourself, I visited the locality complained of by Messrs. Clapper, Smith et al. at Schodack, one mile south of the village of Castleton, and append an explanatory sketch of the territory inspected, showing the topographical features of the drainage, and suggestions as to the remedy of the existing evils.

The pool marked "A" is immediately in front of Mr. Clapper's residence. It was originally an arm of the large creek shown west of the present railroad embankment, and the portion shown blue was isolated and left unprovided for, as regards the maintenance of a proper circulation, by means of the construction of this embankment and the neglect to maintain a proper open ditch to carry off the water. open ditch was constructed by the railroad authorities, at one time, to facilitate an occasional flushing of this pool, at the period of high

An