STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 181 



igan, as furnished by the city water works. Mr. Hyatt has lately 

 made a proposition to the city of Paris to filter its sewage, guaran- 

 teeing to discharge the water perfectly pure into the Seine.* 



The advocates of mechanical filtration are not bound more than 

 other people to dispose of sludge, but Mr. Conant, editor of the Sani- 

 taria Era, a journal published to advertise the Hyatt filter, advocates 

 with great earnestness a plan for purifying sludge with dry earth. 

 His idea is simply to mix a sufficient quantity of dry earth with sludge 

 to deodorize it, and to repeat the process until the mixture becomes a 

 fertilizer equal in value to Peruvian guano. I do not learn that any 

 machines or appliances have been devised for working this plan. It 

 seems to me to be one of great promise, but the cost may postpone its 

 introduction for a long time. 



We have briefly described the systems of sewage disposition worthy 

 of serious consideration. 



They are, to recapitulate : 



1. Simple subsidence. 



2. Irrigation, with or without intermittent filtration. 



3. Chemical precipitation of the whole sewage, or of a residuum 

 after subsidence of suspended mineral matter. 



4. Mechanical filtration 



At the risk of unduly trespassing on the time of this meeting, I 

 propose to devote the remainder of this paper to an answer to this in- 

 quiry: What, in view of past experience and present knowledge, 

 may be reasonably undertaken by an inland city, such as Minneapolis 

 in the way of cleaning? 



Two things we presume: First, that the cleanings of a city are not 

 to be dumped into rivers, lakes, or other waters, or deposited on 

 lands where they will be a nuisance. The spectacle of a city of the 

 size and pretentions of' Minneapolis or Saint Paul, emptying into the 

 Mississippi river thousands upon thousands of tons of solid and liquid 

 filth and ofTal yearly is one to make angels weep and men blaspheme. 

 Men who will hold the offices of mayor, alderman, or health officer, 

 and not make it their first duty to lift their voices for some kind of 

 civilized scavenging and sewerage are fit representatives of a people 

 who are content to sit in the midst of their filth and pray the good 

 Lord not to scourge them with tuberculosis, typhoid and diphtheria. 



Exasperating as official inactivity may be, the mournful, humiliat- 

 ing part of the business is, that we, the people, are so blind, so ignor- 

 ant, and so intent on living that we forget to live. 



* San. Era, Dec. 15, 1887. 



