862 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



impossible to determine upon a method to 

 be substituted for it. The commission have 

 decided that the sewage had best be got rid 

 of at the smallest cost compatible with effi- 

 ciency. Tiie suspended solid matters are 

 the chief causes of nuisance : they may be 

 almost entirely removed, and the tendency 

 to the accumulation of deposits largely 

 lessened, by precipitation ; but the result 

 of discharging an effluent alkalized by lime 

 into the river at the present outfalls is 

 problematical. Precipitation alone would 

 not finally purify the river, but nuisances 

 would still occur in dry weather, and the 

 danger to fish and injury to wells would re- 

 main. The precipitation works themselves 

 might be carried on without sensible nui- 

 sance at a cost of $1,000,000, or a shilling a 

 head of the population per year, but practi- 

 cally a large part of the value of the sewage 

 for manure would be lost. From two to six 

 thousand acres of land would be required 

 for the further purification of the sewage by 

 being passed through it, after having been 

 clarified with lime. The conclusion of the 

 whole matter is, that while profit must not 

 be expected from the utilization of sew- 

 age, yet precipitation and utilization are 

 eminently fitted, when properly applied, to 

 produce a purified eSluent ; and therefore, 

 that, were certain conditions of population 

 and of sewage always observed, each dis- 

 trict could be made self-contained in re- 

 spect of its sewage, just as it can be in 

 respect of its cemetery. The condition as 

 to population is that the district be limited 

 in numbers and in the area occupied. The 

 conditions as to the sewage are, the extent 

 to which it can be separated from the rain- 

 fall, and the degree of freshness in which 

 it is received at the place where it is treated. 



A Forinosan Slfftfh. — Mr. E. Colborae 

 Baker, in the Royal Geographical Society, 

 compared the shape of the Island of For- 

 mosa to that of a fish. If he likened it to 

 a whale, he said, although he must confess 

 it was not very like a whale, he might be 

 asked to account for the blow-holes of the 

 creature. Those blow-holes actually exist 

 in the north part of the island, in the shape 

 of sulphur pits and caverns, from which a 

 irreat stream of sulphurous vapor is con- 

 tinually spouting in many parts. Her Bri- 



tannic Majesty's consul at Tamsui resided 

 within an easy morning's walk of an inac- 

 tive volcano. The summit was a cradle four 

 hundred yards in diameter, and ten miles off 

 was a spot which was very much favored 

 by the European inhabitants. There was a 

 river of hot water, and not many yards off 

 a cold waterfall. The river was fifteen yards 

 broad and five or six feet deep, while the cold 

 waterfall was fifty or sixty feet in height. 

 The surrounding tract was of course burned 

 ground, where no vegetation could exist ; 

 but a quarter of a mile away the flora was 

 luxuriant, and the best pineapples in For- 

 mosa, which arc the best in the world, were 

 cultivated on the very margin of Avernus. 



Monntaln-Farming in Norway. — Farm- 

 ing in the mountain-regions of Norway is 

 carried on under difficulties that would dis- 

 courage an agriculturist bred on our prairies. 

 The steep hills and rocks leave no broad 

 spaces for fields, and the mountaineer, to 

 winter his stock, has to make hay out of 

 the grass that grows on the narrow ledges 

 and in the crevices. If he manages to get 

 a considerable crop off a hill, he will store 

 it in sheds till winter, when he will send 

 it down into the valley in bundles along a 

 strong wire which he has stretched from the 

 foot of the mountain to the top. To dry 

 the hay, poles are planted near the patches, 

 between which ropes or long sticks are laid 

 till a sort of six-barred railing is formed. 

 On these bars the hay is laid, and dried in 

 a most effective manner. Corn is tied in 

 small bundles and impaled on poles placed 

 at intervals in the field. The potato-crop is 

 farmed on a like small scale. The seeds 

 arc dropped here and there wherever there 

 is a possibility of their taking root. At one 

 place potatoes were noticed growing on a 

 bowlder, where a soil about eighteen inches 

 deep had gathered or been placed, the whole 

 field being a triangle the sides of which were 

 each about twelve feet in length. Small 

 patches from twenty feet to as many yards 

 square are common ; while not unf rcquently 

 the corn-fields are but a name, for they me- 

 ander like a stream in all directions among 

 the huge bowlders and bare rocky hillocks 

 which compose so great a part of the sur- 

 face of a farm-land. The lands arc usually 

 very light. Manuring is not resorted to as 



