Seivao^e — Filtration and Irrigation 



451 



thus furnishing the land with a valuable 

 ma!7ure. This state of things, which had ex- 

 isted from time immemorial, and under which 

 men had never been troubled with the sewage 

 question, has of late years been upset. I 

 cannot tell you the name of the inventor of 

 the water-closet. I trust it will ever remain 

 in obscurity, as, to his genius the country is 

 indebted for the cause of the sanitary muddle 

 of the present day. Before his time, a gracious 

 Providence having freely given us pure water 

 for all uses, had also taught us the natural 

 outlet for any excess of it was in the nearest 

 river. Man had also taken care to preserve 

 his foecal matter and refuse in as small a bulk 

 as possible, that it should be the least possible 

 nuisance to him, and sufficiently valuable to 

 the agriculturist to induce him to remove it 

 speedily. The introduction of the water-closet 

 upset all these arrangements, which had 

 worked well for centuries, by mixing these 

 two, so valuable when separate, into that 

 worthless puddle which is now rapidly con- 

 taminating our water supplies, and changing 

 our pellucid rivers into offensive, dirty streams. 

 To such an extent is this evil now acknow- 

 ledged, that whereas a few years since one of 

 the Health of Towns' Acts ordered that in all 

 places where it was adopted a water-closet 

 should be affixed to every cottage, it is the 

 fashion now to revert to the old dry covered 

 privy, and no cottages are now allowed to be 

 built in Rochdale, Manchester, Nottingham, 

 and several other places without an ar- 

 rangement whereby they are kept dry, and so 

 that they can be cleansed at stated periods. 



SEWAGE SCHEMES AND SEWAGE 

 EXPERIMENTS. 



The earth-closet system of the Rev. Mr 

 Moule is one that has proved very successful, 

 and is another step in the right direction. I 

 have but little doubt that in a few years we 

 shall find still more perfect appliances in 

 vogue, and greater facilities afforded in new 

 buildings for the removal of the soil. Time 

 will not allow me to enter into minute de- 

 tails of the various schemes by which in 

 many places it was endeavoured to remedy 

 this state of things. At first, simple subsi- 



dence and irrigating the low meadows of the 

 neighbourhood with the watery part was tried, 

 as at Leith, but as the nuisance from the 

 smell was only diminished by enlarging its 

 area, it was soon found other means must be 

 used. Many eminent men, both chemists 

 and engineers, have invented plans, none of 

 which can be called successful. Their ob- 

 ject hitherto has been to facilitate the rapidity 

 of deposit of the insoluble matter. This 

 has been done in nearly all instances by the 

 addition of lime, alumina, charcoal, and 

 various earthy matters. The results in no 

 instance have continued to be equal to the 

 sanguine views of the inventors, and it may 

 safely be asserted the addition of the precipi- 

 tant has reduced the manurial value to the 

 lowest point, whilst the effluent water has in 

 no case been pure. A process that has been 

 elaborately experimented upon, and may be 

 taken as a type of the majority, is the one 

 called the ABC, said to be so 

 named from the initial letters of its 

 three principal constituents — alum, blood, 

 and clay. It is now in process of trial at 

 Leeds, Leamington, Hastings, Crossness, and 

 other places. I have been furnished with 

 samples of the effluent water and manures 

 manufactured by this company at several of 

 these places, which I have the pleasure of 

 submitting to your notice. The money 

 value put upon them by the company is much 

 higher than that of Dr Voelcker, who has 

 published an elaborate series of experiments 

 on the value of the A B C manures to the 

 farmers. He estimates its worth as being 

 from 14s. to 1 8s. per ton. It is, therefore, 

 practically useless to them except on the 

 spot. A ton of this so-called native guano 

 he estimates as barely equal to a ton of farm 

 yard manure. Dr Voelcker has also pub- 

 lished an elaborate report upon the value of 

 the earth-closet manure. He arrives at con- 

 clusions different to the prospectus of the 

 discoverer, and rather unfavourable to its agri- 

 cultural value, considering that after three 

 times drying, it only contains ammonia and 

 phosphates equal to 6s. 2yA. per ton more 

 than dry mould. I am much inclined to be- 

 lieve his estimate must have been taken 



