UTILIZATION OF SEWAGE. 59 



eiirht cents a thousand jjallons for this material and make 

 anything out of it? It has been estimated and published 

 by different writers on this subject, that it is worth from 

 one cent to one cent and a half per thousand gallons. Mr. 

 Hope tried it on the Lodge Farm, at Barking Creek, below 

 London, at the outlet of the northern system of London 

 sewage, and he foiled for a series of years to make any 

 profit out of it on a farm of several hundred acres ; and yet, 

 the sewage cost him nothing. He tried it, and tried it well. 

 I do not think, with the soil that there is there, and the cli- 

 mate they have, that the ordinary farmer can take that sew- 

 age and utilize it profitably. But London has got to so dis- 

 pose of it whether it is profitable or not. 



And here comes in another consideration, which has 

 been one of the hindrances to genuine progress in this direc- 

 tion. Engineers have their pet hobbies and their pet schemes, 

 which they each regard as the very highest degree of excel- 

 lence attainable in that special branch of science. I remem- 

 ber very well that when the new London system was adopted, 

 there was a great deal of discussion about it. I took pains 

 to keep myself informed in regard to it, and I recollect that 

 the engineer in charge of the work. Sir Joseph Bazalgette, 

 insisted that no improvement was possible upon that system. 

 It was asserted by some wa-iters that the sewage matter 

 would be deposited in the lower reaches of the river and 

 create a stupendous nuisance. He said, *'No, the tide will 

 carry it down the river and into the ocean, and there will be 

 no trouble." But it turned out that the tide only took it 

 three miles a day. That is, the ebb tide carried it down the 

 stream thirteen miles, and the returning tide brought it back 

 ten ; so that the net gain was but three miles a day. The 

 result was that a deposit takes place about and below the 

 outlets at Barking Creek and Crossness which has continued 

 increasing to the present time. Surveys show that deposits 

 have been made to the depth of three, five, and even eight 

 feet, amounting to tens of thousands of cubic yards. This 

 material has been deposited all along the banks of the river, 

 — not only in the shallower parts of the Thames, but in 

 the deeper pjlrts as well, until, as the essayist has told you, 

 it has created such a nuisance that they are at their wits 



