SEVRES 



5321 



SEWAGE AND SEWERAGE 



a Moorish mosque. It stands in the central 

 square and is the third largest cathedral in 

 Europe. Near by is the Court of Oranges, with 

 a fine fountain in the center, encircled by a 

 grove of orange trees. There also stands the 

 beautiful Campanile, or bell tower, called Gi- 

 ralda, which is almost 300 feet high. Surmount- 

 ing it is a Christian bell tower, at the top of 

 which, like a weather vane, turns a colossal 

 statue of gilded bronze ; this tower has twenty- 

 two sweet-toned bells. Another of the glories 

 of Seville is the Alcazar, an ancient palace of 

 Moorish kings. Other interesting buildings and 

 public institutions are the House of Pilate, with 

 marvelous courts and grand halls ; the Museum 

 of Paintings, containing masterpieces by Mu- 

 rillo, Velasquez and other artists of the Seville 

 school ; the Exchange, built in 1585 and housing 

 the archives of the Americas; and the Colum- 

 bian Library, founded by the son of Columbus. 



Although Seville no longer lays claim to the 

 title of "Spanish Athens," which it once so 

 proudly bore, it is still a great intellectual cen- 

 ter. Next to Madrid it is the most flourish- 

 ing city in art, literature and university educa- 

 tion in Spain. It is rapidly recovering much of 

 the commercial prosperity which it enjoyed in 

 the seventeenth century, when it was the chief 

 port of Spanish commerce, and has built up an 

 extensive industry in the production of cigars 

 and the manufacture of pottery, cannon, silks, 

 cotton and numerous other commodities. Popu- 

 lation, 1911, 155,360. R.D.M. 



SEVRES, seh'vr 1 , a small town in Northern 

 France in the department Seine-et-Oise, south- 

 west of Paris, from the outer fortifications of 

 which it is about three miles distant. Sevres 

 is celebrated for the manufacture of the porce- 

 lain bearing this name, and for its stained glass 

 and mosaics. The Porcelain Museum, which is 

 one of the chief features of the town, contains 

 a large and interesting collection of china and 

 earthenware assembled from all parts of the 

 world. The porcelains of Sevres have been the 

 admiration of Europe since the first days of 

 their production at Vincennes, their original 

 home. In 1756, for want of space, the industry 

 was transferred to Sevres and placed under state 

 control. Many famous artists were employed 

 to decorate the plaques, enormous vases and 

 ornaments of all kinds, which are still the treas- 

 ures of collectors. However, the market is now 

 being flooded with spurious works made in Ger- 

 many and England, which are very clever imi- 

 tations of the original. Population of Sevres in 

 1911, 8,395. 



SEWAGE AND SEWERAGE, su'ayj, su'er 

 ayj. Sewerage is a system of pipes and con- 

 duits constructed for conveying waste matter, 

 known as sewage, from houses and factories and 

 depositing it at a safe distance from centers of 

 population. Sewers also drain off either the 

 whole or a part of the surface water of land; 

 in this connection they are more commonly 

 known as drains, A single system of conduits 

 carrying both sewage and rainfall is known as 

 the combined system. The most satisfactory 

 system, however, supplies separate pipes and 

 conduits for surface water. Where the com- 

 bination plan is used it is not uncommon for 

 sewers, choked by the sudden influx of rain 

 water, to discharge sewage backward into cel- 

 lars and basements. 



In the great cities of the modern world, the 

 disposal of sewage is a problem of first im- 

 portance, and proper methods are indispensable 

 to preserve the health of the community. Sani- 

 tary methods of disposal have, therefore, re- 

 ceived increased attention from engineers, 

 health departments and municipal officers gen- 

 erally. Marked improvement has resulted. 



The commonest type of sewerage system is 

 the so-called water-carriage system, in which 

 waste materials are diluted with water and 

 conveyed away from town or city by natural 

 flow, or gravitation. The sewage is conducted 

 through pipes of varying caliber from private 

 homes to public conduits of considerable diame- 

 ter and discharged at a distance, often into 

 streams or into the sea. On the farm or in 

 small villages, it is practicable to dispose of 

 waste in the soil, but such methods will not 

 serve in dense centers of population. 



The house drain, which is of glazed stoneware, 

 from four to six inches in diameter, discharges 

 its matter into somewhat larger pipes of earth- 

 enware or cement, and these in turn empty 

 into larger conduits of brickwork or cement, 

 called mains. The ordinary sewer pipe is made 

 of salt-glazed, vitrified earthenware, having a 

 smooth surface so as not to impede the flow. 

 It is made in short lengths, having a socket at 

 one end into which the next length of pipe is 

 fitted. A bit of hemp packing and Portland 

 cement close the joint. 



The larger sewers, or conduits, are con- 

 structed of several layers of brick resting on a 

 cement bed, or of cement itself. Their diame- 

 ter may be very great, to accommodate popu- 

 lous neighborhoods. All the pipes of the system 

 are set at a uniform gradient so as to give a 

 steady flow, which should be at least 2% feet 



