Old Fashioned

From Lees Priceless Recipes (originally published in 1895 and now re printed in 1998)

A cheap filter is made by taking an ordinary, large-sized flower pot; plug the hole with a piece of sponge; then put a layer of powdered charcoal about 1" thick, the same of silver sand; then a layer of small stones and gravel about 2" thick. This makes an excellent filter for impure water.

also

Another method of purifying water is by placing in a tank of impure water a vessel so arranged that a sponge which it contains shall lap over the edge and dip into the water of the tank. The sponge gradually sucks up and purifies the water in the reservoir and allows it to drop into the smaller vessel or receiver, from which it can be drawn off by a tube. By placing a few lumps of charcoal in the receiver, filtration of the most perfect kind is affected.

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Offered by Kraige.

The first filter sounds good but I don't quite understand the second. I am wondering if the following would create pure water. Based on the way you derive water when without in an emergency. Normally you dig a hole and place green plants or non pure water in the hole. You put a container with a long tube in it , in the center and cover with a plastic cover with a small rock in the middle to cause the water to condense and drip from the low area to the container. So I am wondering if you could do this with impure water in a tub to get pure water? And if you could, why couldn't you do it on a larger scale. I know this kind of system (plastic and hole) needs some warmth but not a lot as it is not much different than the terrarium I used to have that always collected drips no matter what time of the year. Caves which stay a cool temp even drip without a water source.

Offered by Cynthia.

You're talking about a distillation process that normally relies on the sun to evaporate the water under the plastic, but if you had the sun or just warm temperatures, (which will exist, I assume, for places that end up being closer to the new equatorial climes) it could be done on a larger scale.

Offered by Kraige.