114 PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. 



wall, and at no time interfere with the canal being used for sewerage. It was 

 provided that this transfer, with the proposed modifications, be submitted to Con- 

 gress for approval. 



The mayor of the city, in a commnnication to Congress of the 23d April, 1866, 

 states that the condition of the canal is such as to require an abatement of the 

 nuisance caused b}' deposits from the sewers, while the bill now under considera- 

 tion of the council greatlj' increases and prolongs this nuisance. 



The committee concurs in the opinion of the mayor 'of the city that the pro- 

 posed grant of the canal to a private corporation would be a grievous injury to 

 the inhabitants of the city, and would defeat the much-desired object of both 

 Congress and the community of securing the health of the city. 



The committee learns from the mayor that it is proposed to extend the Ches- 

 apeake and Ohio canal from Georgetown, through the city, to the deep water 

 along the Eastern Branch, with the view of establishing a shipping port for large 

 vessels, and depot for the Cumberland coal, thus sharing with Georgetown and 

 Alexandria the profits of this branch of industry. The project is one to which 

 the committee should present no objection, provided it does not interfere with the 

 general health of the cit}^, or works necessary for promoting the health of the 

 inhabitants. 



The committee considers that a canal for such a purpose, or any other, through 

 this city, should not lock down to tide-water until it has passed entirely through 

 the city, and recommends that neither the existing canal, the proposed modifica- 

 tions, nor transfer of the existing canal to any private corporation, be approved 

 by Congress unless the sulyect of public health and sewerage be first provided 

 for, and insured against all hindrance and interruption for all time to come, and 

 that no sewage matter be allowed to enter any open canal tvhatever, within the 

 limits of the District of Columbia. 



INFLUEXCE or THE CAXAL OJT THE HEALTH OE THE POPULATION. 



At the present time the Washington city canal is an extended cesspool, the 

 bottom of which is below the level of low water, the surface varying Avith the 

 slow and gradual rise and fall of the tide, without any current to act upon the 

 bottom or of sufiicient velocity to move insoluble ponderous matter that is 

 received into it. 



The sewage from the water-closets, kitchens, laundries, stables, cattle-pens, and 

 street gutters is now received into this immense trap, there to remain, without 

 power of any kind to carry it into the river or other place to protect the city 

 against its pernicious effects and influences. The existing sewers now enter this 

 reservoir so much below low water as to have caused one-half their entire height 

 to be closed by deposit, and as a consequence filling every such sewer with 

 poisonous matter into the city to the level of the intersection of the water in the 

 canal with the inclined plane of the bottom of the sewer. This mass cannot be 

 removed by any means now available. On the suppovsition that the canal re- 

 ceives the sewage from a population of only 30,000 of the inhabitants of the 

 city, the estimated annual cubic mass that is thrown into the canal is not less 

 than 300,000 cubic feet, or at the rate of 10 cubic feet per head per annum of 

 solid and fluid human excrement. 



This fecal matter has for some years past been accumulating in the canal, in 

 proportion to the extent and number of sewers constructed from time to time, 

 without any power of removal of the solid parts, and only a slight power for 

 moving the fluid portions backwards and forwards, there being no continuous 

 current to force even the fluid and soluble parts into the Potomac or Eastern 

 Branch. 



From the experience of other cities, and the investigations of chemists and 

 engineers, we learn that open sewers, as the canal in this city, evolve gases very 



