1889-90.] SECOND MEETING, 5 



Mr. Levi J. Clark read a paper on "City Sanitation and the Sewage 

 Problem.' 



Mr. Arthur Harvey had paid a good deal of attention to the subject 

 since the reading of Mr. Clark's paper of last session. The main question 

 was then discussed, and the opinions of some of the engineers present 

 were favourable to the plan proposed. He could not help protesting 

 against the waste of fertilizing matter which it involved. If the sewage 

 of Toronto were to be turned into the lake, Mr. Clark's ingenious con- 

 trivance for utilizing the water-power of the flushing tanks to drive the 

 sewage out to sea and prevent the choking of the great outlet pipe 

 seemed very cheap and appeared to promise good results. But while he 

 thought considerations of economy might compel the adoption of such a 

 system in Toronto, he was much opposed to the great waste involved in 

 it. Some regions in the Old World, once fertile, had become deserts 

 through taking successive harvests from the soil and returning nothing 

 to it. From this and other causes several New England States and 

 parts of New York no longer yielded as they once did. In Canada, the 

 Richelieu district, once the granary of a Province, was now an importer 

 of food. Surely we ought to exhaust every means of saving the fertilizers 

 in sewage before accepting a method of total waste. He had caused 

 a close enquiry to be made in England of modern methods of sewage 

 disposal, and had interested in the subject Mr. T. Kennard Thomson, 

 one of the brightest graduates of the Toronto School of Science, now a 

 member of the American Institute of Civil Engineers, This gentleman 

 had examined the sewage farms, the filtering beds, the methods of 

 electrolysis, the Condor method of deodorisation, the Amiens system, 

 and had come to the conclusion (with which Mr. Harvey agreed) that if 

 any European system was to be introduced into America it should be 

 the system of precipitation, and that the best and cheapest precipitant 

 was the porous carbon, charged with chemicals, now being used at 

 Ealing, Southampton, Coventry, and other places ; of which certain trials 

 had been made at the City Hall here and at the Agricultural College in 

 Guelph. Mr. T. Kennard Thomson had visited Southampton (shortly 

 after the visit of the Mayor of Toronto), also Ealing and one or two 

 other towns. The system at Southampton was self-supporting ; at he 

 other places nearly so. The precipitation was very rapid, and the solids, 

 though not being of as much value for manure as once expected, were 

 nevertheless all in demand. The effluent of the precipitation was color- 

 less and bright. It contained some nitrates, and all germs were not 

 destroyed ; but if it was desirable, these nitrates could be saved and the 

 effluent sterilised at small cost. After referring to the systems in use 

 in other towns in England, which had worked quite satisfactorily in 



