82 



NATURE 



[Dec. 2, 1875 



upon the assumption of his receiving the sewage from a 

 population of 8,000, instead of which the amount actually 

 received was that due to a population of about 3,000. 



Mr. Hope has thus done excellent service in continually 

 directing attention to and practically demonstrating, often 

 at great pecuniary sacrifice, the applicability of the irriga- 

 tion scheme to the disposal of sewage. It is true that the 

 Towns Sewage Commission of 1865, in their third Report, 

 did not speak favourably of the process, stating that their 

 analyses proved that the effluent water from the Rugby 

 works contained about the same quantity of dissolved 

 organic impurity as the raw sewage, but it is now known 

 that the process of analysis employed by them gave fal- 

 lacious results, and analyses by the Rivers Commission 

 (First Report) show that the process removes an average 

 of 817 per cent, of the nitrogen, and 68 '6 per cent, of the 

 carbon contained as dissolved organic impurity, and 977 

 per cent, of the suspended organic pollution. 



So much for irrigation. The other plan recommended 

 by the Commission, Frankland's " downward inter- 

 mittent filtration," is equally if not more effective. An 

 average of 8y6 per cent, of nitrogen and 72*8 per cent, 

 of carbon contained as dissolved organic pollution is 

 removed by the operation, and all suspended impurities. 

 We may further state that the plan has been applied by 

 Mr. Bailey Denton to the sewage of Merthyr Tydvil, and 

 has been in successful operation at that town for a 

 period of three years. 



Two effective scheipes for the treatment of sewage — 

 either of which might be employed according to the 

 locality — are thus offered, so that, the sewage question 

 being practically settled, let us now consider the action 

 of the Government in the matter. 



It is at least fifteen years since the efficacy of irri- 

 gation was first made known, and seven years since the dis- 

 covery of intermittent filtration. In a letter on the sewage 

 question published in 1865 by Mr. Hope, it is stated that 

 " there have already been six Select Committees and two 

 Royal Commissions on the question, independently of the 

 Main Drainage Committee of the Metropolitan Board of 

 Works, which has investigated the subject for five long 

 years, and these Committees and Commissions have pub- 

 lished no less than ten reports." A Rivers Pollution Com- 

 mission was formed in 1 865 and replaced by another in 1 868, 

 which continued its work down to 1 874. j,These Commissions 

 have cost the country from 40,000/. to 50,000^., and in their 

 laboratory the various processes devised for the purification 

 of sewage and other foul liquids have been quantitatively 

 examined and the results made known in no less than 

 nine consecutive reports. Remedies for the different 

 forms of pollution have been clearly and consistently 

 pointed out, and various recommendations suggested for 

 legislation. The standards of polluting liquids proposed 

 by the Commission to be fixed by Act of Parliament 

 have been substantially approved of both by English and 

 Continental chemists of eminence. Now the members of 

 a Royal Commission are presumably appointed because 

 specialy qualified for the inquiry, a presumption which 

 has been amply testified in the case of the Rivers Com- 

 mission. Notwithstanding this — notwithstanding that a 

 code of standards has been proposed for legislative enact- 

 ment — in spite of the fact that practical and efficient 

 remedies do already exist for the [disposal of sewage, 



down to the present time nothing whatever has been 

 done by the Government. The Duke of North- 

 umberland's Bill of 1873 embodied, it is true, all the 

 recommendations of the Rivers Commission, but, most 

 wonderful to relate, in the Rivers Pollution Bill brought 

 in last session, the whole of the work done by that Com- 

 mission is totally ignored ; and the Bill moreover shows 

 that its framers were totally unacquainted with the ad- 

 vancement of science in this direction during the last 

 twenty years. 



Confronting these facts with a statement in Mr. Hope's 

 second pamphlet, that " the Registrar- General's returns, 

 confessedly incomplete from various causes, show that 

 * sanitary authorities ' have been killing by means of 

 enteric fever no less than 14,000 persons per annum," we 

 now leave the subject to the serious consideration of the 

 Legislature. 



THE MANCHESTER SCIENCE LECTURES 

 Science Lectures for the People, delivered in Manchester. I 

 First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Series.) 

 1866-74. 3 vols. (Manchester: Heywood.) 



IT is now nine years since Prof. Roscoe made the bold! 

 experiment of ascertaining whether the working men] 

 of Manchester would appreciate the value of scientifij^ 

 instruction given in a plain but correct manner, and illus 

 trated by suitable experiments and diagrams. The magJ 

 nificent success that attended the early efforts of Prof 

 Roscoe has led the experiment to be repeated yearly until 

 it is now, we hope, a settled institution. In the preface* 

 to one of the series we learn that each lecture, on an 

 average, has been attended by nearly i,ooo persons, and 

 an additional and wider audience has been secured by the 

 verbatim reports of the lectures which are bound together 

 in the volumes before us. Published at a penny each, 

 from 5,000 to io,coo of each of these lectures have been 

 sold, and the demand for back numbers still continues. 



Certainly it is to be hoped, as Prof. Roscoe remarks, 

 " that the example of Manchester may be followed by other 

 large towns, for surely nothing can at the present time be 

 more important than to infuse into the minds of the 

 people an idea of that scientific truth which is rapidly 

 being recognised as not only lying at the foundation of 

 our material welfare, but also of. our social and moral 

 well-being." We are aware that many of our large towns 

 are doing good work in this direction by the lectures 

 regularly arranged in connection with some local institu- 

 tion ; witness, for example, the immense audiences 

 attracted by the admirable lectures yearly given in con- 

 nection with the Midland Institute at Birmingham. But 

 the lectures at these and similar institutions are chiefly 

 frequented by the middle classes, whereas we are assured 

 that at the Manchester lectures the class of persons pre- 

 sent was chiefly working men, for whom the lectures were 

 designed, and who by their marked attention and interest 

 invariably showed how keenly they appreciated the infor- 

 mation that was given. It is said that to make working- 

 men lectures a success, a very low entrance fee must be 

 charged, and this involves a pecuniary loss that must be 

 met by local subscriptions. This must necessarily be 

 true of the first course or two, when the people will not 

 pay for that of which they have had no experience. But 



