INTRODUCTION 3 



had to provide for the sewage of 250 to 300 persons and the 

 drainage from a farm. The water - supply was adequate for 

 ordinary needs, but not sufficient for water - carriage of the 

 sewage. A very large cemented brick pit was constructed 

 underground, and arched over, at the back of the buildings and 

 200 yards from them. Into this the whole sewage passed con- 

 tinuously. When the floating gauge indicated that the pit was 

 full, the whole contents were pumped out from a point near 

 the bottom, and discharged by pipes over cultivated slopes, 

 finally filtering through a gravel and chalk soil into a moderate- 

 sized reservoir in a clayey valley at the foot of the hill, where 

 it mixed with water derived from springs and a rivulet. The 

 mixed water was clear and bright, except for an occasional 

 turbidity from the clay. At the periods of emptying no nuisance 

 occurred ; sometimes a faint earthy odour was noticed when 

 the wind was in the direction. The health of the school was 

 good. 



But in towns the crowding together of cesspools renders a 

 large area of soil waterlogged with black and foetid matter, 

 which undergoes little or no oxidation ; while the periodical 

 clearing out may be an offensive, and sometimes dangerous, 

 process. At Hampstead, for instance, in a sandy soil, cesspools 

 were formerly almost universal, and were thickly distributed, so 

 that the earth and often the basements were heavily infiltrated. 

 It is needless to say that most of them have now been removed. 

 A striking example of the pollution of a deep well by leaky 

 cesspools occurred at Liverpool in 1872. The Dudlow Lane 

 well, in the new red sandstone, 443 feet deep, by continuous 

 pumping, had dried up all the private wells in the neighbour- 

 hood. These were afterwards used as cesspools. As a result, 

 the water in the deep well became polluted, and in a few years 

 after its construction it had to be closed. On diverting the 

 drainage from the cesspools, the water was so improved that it 

 was considered safe to resume its use. But Dr. Campbell 

 Brown reports in 1903 that the sandstone rock has become 

 so saturated with the waste water of sewers and streets that 

 Liverpool wells have one after another been disused, only three 

 being still employed for public supply. 



In France, and in some places in England, where cesspools 

 are common, they are emptied on the " pneumatic system." A 

 large barrel is exhausted by an air-pump, and a flexible tube 

 connected with it is passed down into the cesspool. On open- 



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