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carry out what would be disastrous policy — a policy of 

 robbing Peter to pay Paul, by discharging the Metropolitan 

 sewer lower down the Thames estuary. But will the Peters 

 of Ramsgate and Margate, and the hundreds of rising sea 

 resorts fringing the lower Thames and the coast on each 

 side of its mouth, submit to have their salubrity sacrificed 

 to enable London — who ought to be the sanitary guiding 

 star for the empire — to commit a grievous wrong to its 

 neighbours ? Will she be permitted again to build up miles 

 of a black wall of pollution in the Thames, whose Styx- 

 like waters are now daily ploughed up by our countless 

 fleets of shipping, or perhaps, still worse, they are obliged 

 to anchor on its fever-breathing waters. Is it possible for 

 fish to force their way through this wall of impurity ? No ! 

 I have little doubt than when a salmon, more enterprising 

 than his fellows, forces his way even a mile into this filthy 

 barrier, he turns back in disgust, fully convinced that the 

 river, once the home of his ancestors, has ceased, from 

 source to mouth, to be a fit habitation for his species. But 

 if neither irrigation nor a second Cloaca maxima, with its 

 daily outpouring of that which in its proper form is a mine 

 of agricultural wealth, can solve the Thames difficulty, how 

 is it then to be overcome ? 



At this stage I will explain to you a combination of 

 chemistry and one of the powers of Mother Earth. The 

 intelligent experiments of Mr. Sillar ended in a patent being 

 taken out, which is now being worked by the Native Guano 

 Company. This marvellous system, only lately prominently 

 brought before the notice of the general public, is being 

 worked within the confines of this Exhibition — No. 798 in 

 the official catalogue — in a special annexe, where the 

 process is demonstrated in active operation. And why, 



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