576 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



where irrigation is carried on is not injuriously affected; 

 fourth, cattle thrive on the irrigated land, and no case of 

 their being affected with entozoa has ever been heard of; 

 fifth, no other manure has been found necessary for the crops, 

 and the produce, both in quality and quantity, is very satis- 

 factory ; sixth, the water, after passing through the land, is 

 purified in a satisfactory manner ; and, in one case, cattle 

 drink the effluent water. 16 A, January, 1872, 107. 



PREVENTION OF NOXIOUS DECOMPOSITION OF SEWAGE. 



The addition of chloride of calcium to sewage, it is stated, 

 hasthe desirable effect of preventing noxious decomposition. 

 15 A, Prop. Brit. Assoc, August 31, 1872, 272. 



SEWERAGE SYSTEM IN MILAN. 



The sewerage system adopted in Milan is recommended 

 by Mr. Child, of Oxford, as being suitable for small towns 

 and country villages. Its essential feature is the drainage 

 of the houses into water-tight cess-pools, which are emptied 

 frequently, efficiently, and quite inoffensively by means of 

 a barrel-cart, previously exhausted of air, and a hose. The 

 barrel-cart then conveys the sewage' to a depot at a conven- 

 ient distance, where all that is salable is sold to farmers, and 

 the rest is manufactured into a kind of dry artificial guano. 

 Many small towns and villages lie on dead flats or at the 

 bottom of deep valleys, where ordinary sewerage works could 

 not be established without an expensive provision for "raising 

 the sewage in order to render it available for irrigation. In 

 such places the Milanese system might be carried out with 

 ease, and at comparatively small outlay. A certain number 

 of cess-pools must be rendered water-tight a process not 

 Aery expensive. One cess-pool would serve for several cot- 

 tages, and frequent emptying would be better than large sizes 

 of inclosures. Two barrel-carts must be procured, and these, 

 with a small steam-engine at the depot to work the air-pump, 

 would, together with about three men and two horses, form 

 the whole of the apparatus required for testing the system 

 on a small but sufficient scale. On the day on which Mr. 

 Child visited the depot near Milan, farmers' carts were wait- 

 ing there literally in scores to obtain their supply of it; and 

 he feels sure that, if landed proprietors or farmers were to 



