BACTERIAL PURIFICATION 205 



effluent of some works for the manufacture of sugar from 

 beetroot.^ 



About the same time the " Mouras Automatic Scavenger " 

 was inaugurated in France. According to the Cosmos les 

 Mondes, December, 1881 ; January, 1882 ; " this mysterious 

 contrivance, which has been used for twenty years, consists 

 of a closed vault with a water seal, which rapidly transforms 

 all the excrementitious matter which it receives into a homo- 

 geneous fluid, only slightly turbid, and holding all the solid 

 matters in suspension in the form of scarcely-visible filaments. 

 The vault is self-emptying and continuous in its working, and 

 the escaping liquid, while it contains all the organic and 

 inorganic elements of the faeces, is almost devoid of smell, 

 and can be received into watering - carts for horticultural 

 purposes, or may pass away into the sewer for use in irriga- 

 tion." As to the theory of the action, it is said, " May not 

 the unseen agents be those vibrions or anaerobies which, 

 according to Pasteur . . . only manifest their activity in vessels 

 from which air is excluded ?" 



Observations with a glass model showed that " faecal matters 

 introduced on August 29 were entirely dissolved on Sep- 

 tember 16, while even kitchen refuse, onion peelings, etc., 

 which at first floated on the surface, descended after a time 

 and awaited decomposition. Everything capable of being 

 dissolved acted in a similar way, and even paper wholly 

 disappeared." 



" The principle on which M. Mouras bases the action of his 

 machine is that the animal dejecta contain within themselves 

 all the principles of fermentation or of dissolution necessary and 

 sufficient to liquefy them, and to render them useful in their 

 return to the soil, and without appreciable loss." 



A later article of January, 1883, by the Abbe Moigno gives 

 formulae for the dimensions of the tank, estimating its super- 

 ficial area as preferably xV metre, or about I square foot per 

 person. (The Exeter tank, I may remark in passing, works out 

 to about 0*6 square foot per person.) The article also specifies 

 that " for the complete solution of the floating solid matter a 

 period of thirty days should be allowed," and calculates that 

 this gives — 



1 + 2 + 3 + + 30 M 



30 



^ Roechling, journal of the Society of Arts, January 7, 1898 ; Travis, Trans- 

 actions of the Civil and Mechanical Engineers'" Society, 1906, gives extracts from this 

 specification. 



