THE IKKIGATION AGE. 



143 



The Drainage Journal Department 



DRAIN TILE FOR THE DISPOSAL OF HOUSE 

 SEWAGE. 



BY C. G ELLIOTT. 



Country life with city conveniences is sought for 

 by hundreds of people who, having experienced the arti- 

 ficial atmosphere of the crowded city, long for more free- 

 dom, more sunshine and the untainted breezes of the 

 iields. A change from the busy streets and bare walls 

 of the city to the quiet lanes of the suburb or more 

 ample grounds of the country place often imparts new 

 life to the city man, especially if he has a relish for rural 

 affairs. It is not strange that he should attempt to 

 introduce some of the conveniences to which he has been 

 accustomed into his country home. In addition to the 

 vine-covered porches, kitchen garden and ample lawns, 

 he wants the inside water supply and bath conveniences 

 of the city house. The attractive natural surroundings 

 and simplicity of his residence do not lessen his desire 

 for some of the fittings of the more pretentious resi- 

 dence. 



Nor is a desire for these things limited to the peo- 

 ple who have become accustomed to city sewers and 

 lights. The thrifty farmer who receives his market re- 

 ports by telephone and his letters at his door, and the 

 country merchant whose tasty residence is an ornament 

 to the village, are fully alive to the comforts which their 

 city cousins enjoy. 



As a result of this demand it is not uncommon to 

 see electric lights and waterworks in our unpretentious 

 villages, while their streets are but country roads and 

 their methods of sewage disposal by open vault and cess- 

 pool remain unchanged. That serious results from the 

 lack of city sewerage facilities in small towns have not 

 followed is contrary to the prediction of sanitarians. 

 l\'ot that warnings on this score should not receive care- 

 ful attention from all householders, especially in the 

 older settled towns, but all of the local conditions affect- 

 ing health are not always grasped by sanitary reformers. 



It was frequently predicted by eastern people, when 

 emigration to the level lands of Illinois and Indiana 

 was fast dotting those States with farmhouses and 

 towns, that the country could never be made healthy; 

 that the malaria incident to subduing a country so level 

 would be a permanent inheritance of the people who had 

 been allured to the prairies by the attraction of cheap 

 and fertile farms. The development of the country has 

 shown that these predictions have not come true. On 

 the contrary, it is more often the town which adorns the 

 hillside or is found in some picturesque valley of the 

 more undulating country which heads the record for un- 

 healthf ulness. The reason for this is not difficult to 

 find. In order to make the level lands productive in 

 the highest degree, soil-drainage was necessary not only 

 for farms, but for towns. The depressions found upon 

 the surface of the country were but suggestions for the 

 location of artificial channels found necessary for drain- 

 age. The better defined streams were deepened and 

 otherwise improved. Interior drainage was provided 

 for the purpose of drying the soil. Towns constructed 

 underdrains along their streets and residents drained 

 their cellars and gardens with drain-tile. Stagnant 



water in all cases suggested the desirability of more 

 complete drainage. In this way the soil of both coun- 

 try and town became capable of receiving and appropri- 

 ating a large amount of waste. The open condition of 

 soil produced by underdrainage encourages the work of 

 bacteria which require free air in the soil. These, to- 

 gether with growing vegetation, appropriate much mat- 

 ter in the soil which would otherwise be a menace to 

 health. Drainage water, instead of flowing over the 

 surface, carrying with it such waste as may be found 

 in its course, or sinking into the earth to find its way 

 through unknown underground channels and become 

 concentrated in a few localities, passes directly down- 

 ward to the floor of the drains and is carried by them to 

 the open stream. This gives more nearly a pure soil, 

 that essential to good health so much emphasized by 

 the Greek sanitarian, Hippocrates, than any other proc- 

 ess that can be named. 



Many of our most healthy towns are found in level 

 sections of States where the only drainage is that found 

 necessary for agricultural improvements. In point of 

 sanitary merit they lead the list. Briefly stated, the dif- 

 ference is owing to the kind and efficiency of the drain- 

 age accomplished. In natural drainage the waste .from 

 one residence may be carried and concentrated upon a 

 neighboring situation in a manner which cannot be fol- 

 lowed out and prevented until its presence becomes 

 known by its injurious effects. 



Col. Geo. E. Waring, a close observer upon the san- 

 itary effects of drainage, writing upon this subject, says: 

 "The agricultural drainage of land in and about towns, 

 and the soil-drainage which is usually effected even 

 where no special provision is made for it by the ordinary 

 works of sewerage, have fully demonstrated the sanitary 

 benefit arising from the removal of stagnant water, or 

 water of saturation from the soil. The earth acts upon 

 foul organic matters much in the same way that char- 

 coal would do, having, though in a less degree, the same 

 sort of capacity for condensing within its pores the 

 oxygen needed to consume the products of organic de- 

 composition. But no soil can do that as long as its 

 spaces are filled with water, and in order to make it an 

 efficient disinfectant it is necessary to withdraw its sur- 

 plus moisture and thus admit the atmosphere within its 

 pores." 



It may be added as a demonstration along this line 

 that Col. Waring employed drain-tile in distributing 

 house sewage by subirrigation, a method of disposal used 

 successfully for farm residences, small factories, and 

 suburban places. In this plan the receptacle for the 

 liquid wastes is a tight tank holding froni 100 to 200 

 gallons, placed under the surface of the ground outside 

 the dwelling, equipped with an automatic siphon which 

 acts when the tank is filled, discharging its contents in 

 about one-half minute into a system of tile drains. The 

 drains are laid as branches to the main which receives 

 the sewage from the tank, their depth being about ten 

 inches and distance apart twelve feet. The plat of 

 ground which receives the contents of the tank should 

 be a back lawn or meadow, with a gentle slope, such as 

 may be provided near any dwelling. The disposal con- 



