704 TOWN SANITATION. 
An attempt has been made in a few places to get rid of foul 
water in a simple and inexpensive way. Wells have been sunk 
to considerable depths, into which the foul water drains and 
passes away by soakage. Where due attention is paid to the 
ventilation of these wells, they are credited with a fair degree of 
success. 
In no town has dry refuse been allowed to accumulate. 
Regulations controlling this matter have been strictly enforced. 
So far as the employment of cesspits as part of a system for 
the disposal of excreta can be brought under hygienic conditions, 
fair efforts have been made to doso. They are small in size, and 
water-tight. In some instances, as at Port Pirie and Gawler, 
earth-closets have been substituted for many of the cesspits. 
When the requirements of the dry-earth system, as at Gawler, 
are carefully met, such as a good supply of dry earth, and regular 
and frequent removal, it has proved a success. 
Less disposition exists in the community now than formerly to 
oppose sanitary work, and a freer readiness prevails among local 
sanitary bodies to appoint inspectors, and even medical health 
officers, when required by the Central Board. 
Without, perhaps, having directly in view the beneficial more 
than the artistic effects of tree-growth, several towns have 
planted along their streets, and elsewhere, large numbers of 
pepper and other varieties of trees and shrubs, with the happy 
result of minimising the serious evils which arise from the 
saturation of the soil with foul water. 
2.—NATURAL DIFFICULTIES. 
It is hardly necessary to say that towns placed near the sea 
level are exceedingly difficult to drain. It is well known that 
the rivers on which many towns similarly situated to Port 
Adelaide and Port Pirie are generally only open sewers. But 
this is not so in the case of either of these towns. The reason 
for this may possibly be found in the two facts, that the popula- 
tion has not reached such dimensions as to bring about this 
undesirable state of things, and that further, as the rivers are 
really arms of the sea, all sewage passing into them is immediately 
subject to the chemical action of sea-water. All the ports 
referred to are undrained, beyond what ordinary surface drainage 
and a few subsidiary soakage wells can effect. At Port Adelaide 
traps are constructed at points on the course of the water-tables, 
to arrest the more solid portion of the fluid refuse, but beyond 
this no attempt has been made to carry out any complete system 
of drainage. The deep drainage of Port Adelaide has been 
reported upon by engineers, and frequently discussed by the 
town council, but only to be laid aside again. The full supply of 
water which each of the ports and some other towns receives points 
strongly to the necessity of a system of efficient deep drainage. 
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