SEWAGE DISPOSAL. 



741 



the Liberals as well as the Progressists. The 

 Cabinet again offered their resignations, but 

 the King induced them to remain, declaring 

 that he did not intend to change his advisers, 

 but wished to unite the friends of authority 

 and order against the revolutionary demands 

 of the Radicals. The adherents of Ristich, 

 who had followed a philo-Russian policy, and 

 those of Pirotchanatz, who would reduce the 

 country to political and economical vassalage 

 to Austria, were mere coteries, while the ma- 

 jority of all classes were inimical to the King 

 and the system with which Pirotchanatz and 

 Ristich were identified. The most intelligent 

 classes, as well as the main body of the people, 

 were imbued with the democratic doctrines of 

 the Radical party. These doctrines showed 

 the influence of the socialistic theories of Ba- 

 kunin. The demands of the party were, demo- 

 cratic institutions, complete freedom of speech 

 and the press, a radical readjustment of taxa- 

 tion according to advanced theories, and the 

 largest development of local self-government. 



SEWAGE DISPOSAL. A sanitary and en- 

 gineering problem of the highest moment is the 

 question of the disposal of city sewage, and of 

 its utilization in restoring the abstracted ele- 

 ments to the soil. The question of sewage dis- 

 posal is simpler and also more urgent on the 

 Continent of Europe, where the English system 

 of sewers for the reception of all waste and 

 excrementary matter has not been generally 

 introduced. Among German and other Con- 

 tinental sanitarians the sewer- pipe system is 

 now generally condemned. 



The people of Paris have long desired to get 

 rid of their barbarous and unwholesome system 

 of privy-vaults and night-carts. The happy 

 results of the utilization of the sewage for fer- 

 tilizing purposes at Gennevillers suggested the 

 plan of connecting the vaults with the sewers 

 and turning the whole of the night-soil, which 

 amounts to five or six million pounds per diem, 

 into the general sewerage, to be conducted away 

 to enrich the soil in the depths of the forest 

 of St. Germain or some more distant region. 

 Physicians and hygienists protested on ac- 

 count of the dangers of the exhalations from 

 the vents and culverts and the conveyance of 

 the germs of disease to the lands to be ma- 

 nured. Berlier's system of pneumatic voidance 

 was devised to meet this want. It has been 

 applied on a scale sufficient to test its merits 

 in the Pepiniere barracks, which lodge one 

 thousand men constantly. The water-closets 

 empty into a cubic receptacle, which contains 

 a sieve for the retention of foreign substances. 

 The sieve can be shaken from the outside to 

 allow all decomposible matter to pass through. 

 The receivers communicate with a number of 

 cylindrical vessels. The cylinder contains a 

 large float, which ends below in a rubber globe 

 fitting tightly in the aperture of the outlet- 

 pipe. When enough material has entered to 

 raise the float, it is rapidly evacuated by rea- 

 son of the difference of air-pressure in the 



pipe and outside. The rubber valve then 

 closes again the conical orifice of the evacuat- 

 ing-pipe. A vacuum of fifteen centimetres of 

 mercury is sufficient for the operation. The 

 active circulation of the air in the pipes pro- 

 duced by the aspiration of the air-pump has 

 the effect of thoroughly mixing and liquefying 

 the excreraental materials. This prevents the 

 stoppages in the pipes which occur when pneu- 

 matic pressure is employed. The material is 

 drawn into a reservoir in the works at Leval- 

 lois-Perret, from which it is distributed by 

 means of a force-pump to distances of from 

 fifteen to thirty miles. An engine of twenty- 

 horse power drives both the air-pump and the 

 rotary force-pump. The air-pump is of the hy- 

 dro-pneumatic type, in which the piston works 

 in water. It is much more powerful than is 

 needed for the purpose, being capable of pro- 

 ducing a vacuum of seventy centimetres of 

 mercury in a few minutes. No smell escapes 

 from the receiving or voiding apparatus or the 

 iron pipes with joints of lead. 



In Dantzic, Berlin, and Breslau the sewage 

 has been applied to irrigation with satisfactory 

 results, economical and sanitary. The system 

 of filtering and precipitation with chemical 

 agents was tried in Germany, but the purifica- 

 tion was imperfect. The plan of conducting 

 the sewage waters upon farming-lands was 

 adopted. The water is cleansed of the grosser 

 solids before being pumped into the conduits. 

 At Dantzic, about a third of a sandy tract of 

 1,250 acres has been fertilized, and is rented 

 for gardening at from $20 to $28 an acre. 

 The company which built and carries on the 

 works has the use of the land for thirty years. 

 The death-rate has diminished 21 per cent. 

 The surplus water, which is drained into the 

 Vistula, retains one eighth of the organic 

 matter, one sixth of the ammonia, and one 

 half of the mineral impurities of the original 

 sewage- water. The municipality of Berlin 

 bought two large tracts, one of which, at Os- 

 dorf and Friederikenhoff, has been reclaimed 

 with the sewage, and lets for high rents. Bres- 

 lau disposes of its sewage on the same plan. 

 The lands irrigated with these rich liquids are 

 said to be not insalubrious. When the plots of 

 waste land on which about a foot of the solids 

 have been allowed to accumulate are dried and 

 broken up no ill odors or unhealthy exhala- 

 tions are given off. The German experience 

 of this method of turning noxious drainage- 

 matter into a means of supporting life is that 

 the expenses of pumping, etc., are abundantly 

 recovered. 



Schloesing's process of precipitating by re- 

 frigeration the ammonia of excremental matter 

 in the form of ammoniacal phosphate of mag- 

 nesium supplements Berlier's methods of suc- 

 cessfully removing the most dangerous and 

 offensive portion of the refuse of great cities 

 and rendering it useful. 



The system of Hanson for the purification 

 and utilization of sewage has been in use at 



