Specially written for FIRE AND WATER ENGINEERING.

The liltration system at Louisville, Ky., it is expected,will be in operation about May next. It has been specially designed by Charles Hermany, civil engineer and superintendent of the waterworks, He has also designed, and for more than two years has supervised the new waterworks system, whose completion will be marked by the installation of tbe filter system. That system, which comprises subsidence, coagulation and liltration, is simple and economical in operation and will render the Ohio river water clear, colorless, free from organic matter and bacteria. It consists of the 100,000,000-gal. reservoir, which has been built at a height 200 ft. above tbe lowest level of the city, into which tbe raw water is pumped from the Ohio. Next comes the filterhouse, with three tanks and room for three more. Each tank is rectangular, 146 ft. 11 -Hi ins. in length, 30 ft. 3 ins. in width and 8 ft. deep in the cellar. Each has a sand-surface area of one-tenth of an acre, so that, when filtering at the rate of 125,000,000 gals, per acre in twenty-four hours, the output of each unit in twenty-four hours will be 12,500,000 gals.—37,500,000 gals, per twenty-four hours for the maximum volume filtered under the most favorable conditions. The floor-area of the filterhouse is one acre. The coagulating basin above tbe filterhouse is 60x120 ft. and is 67 ft. high. The plate steel or standpipe, is 50 ft. in diameter by 75 ft. high. Its inflow and outflow nozzles are 48-in.: the floating weir-pipe is also 48-in. The settled water from the Crescent Mill reservoir is admitted and measured by a meter, and the water is discharged from the coagulating basin to the filter, whence it again passes through a laver of sand into the clear water basins. Inside the house are fourteen steel plate tanks, 50 ft. in diameter, 25 ft. high above the lower section of pipe. The feed-pumps for the alum are bronze and aluminum and are acid-proof. There is an electric elevator, as well as a stairway in the coagulant house, and on the upper floor are a chemical laboratory and a storeroom. The sandagitator. or grill in the filterhouse is 3 ft. 3*4 ins. wide by 149 ft. 9 ins. long and weighs complete about 65 tons. An electric motor moves it transversely from tank to tank, and eight combined electric motors lower and lift it vertically into the filter tank. In each filter tank, at about 3 ft. above its bottom, there is a diaphragm, of transverse I beams, to support the weight of the sand-layers, the depth of which is 36 ins.—484 cu. yds. to each tank. Upon these i beams are placed mats of wire-cloth composed of three sheets of brass wire; one mat, with one mesh to two inches, one, with five meshes to the inch and the third. No. 31 brass wire, with forty-five meshes to tbe inch. These mats go clear across tbe tanks transversely, the wires of the lower cloth penetrating the sides and ends of the filter tank through punched holes, riveted and bolted on tbe inside. The mats form the strainer system. The method used is peculiar to Louisville and is a substitute for cone-valves, strainer-cups, perforated tubes, slotted tubes and all such devices. My it, it is claimed, water can be filtered more rapidly and the sand cleaned more quickly than by the old methods of cleaning. The clear water may be turned off at any moment and the unfiltered water pumped direct into the mains from the reservoir at Crescent Hill. All the buildings are constructed of concrete, as is, also, the dear-water basin below ground, with a capacity of 25,000,000 gals. The two engines which are to pump the filtered water through the 36-in. and 48 in. mains are the largest south of the Ohio river, and were built by the Holly company, at a cost of about $385,000. Both arc vertical, selfcontained, triple-expansion, crank and flywheel pumping engines, and each lias a capacity of 30,ooo.occ gals, per twenty-four hours, 'flic pumps take suction at the easterly ends of the engine and discharge on tbe westerly ends, taking the water from the dear-water reservoir and releasing it into a common delivery pipe. The engines are installed in a house adjoining the dear-water reservoir, 'flic bedplates rest upon a concrete pier about 20 ft. deep, and are substantially bolted and fastened.

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