260 



♦ KNOWLEDGE . 



[MiRCH 27, 1885. 



here engaged in throwing house-sweepings and fireplace 

 refuse into an outhouse window. There her duty ends; a 

 duty which pi-rforoe must be performed in any case ; and 

 there does the work of the automaton commence. Fig. 13 

 is a sectional drawing of " Morrell's Patent Self-acting 

 Cinder-sifting Ash Closet," or " Combined 

 House Ashes and Earth Closet." The 

 second title here quoted is only very 

 seldom appropriate, viz , at such times as 

 the a^h dust from the house is in-ufficient 

 in quantity to meet the dtniaiids of the 

 closet, when it can be supi>le- 

 mented by a quantity of dried 

 loamy earth. The contents of 

 the servant's pail falls into the 

 place marked "unscreened 

 ashes " in Fig. 1 3, and thence 

 through th'^ opening on to 

 the top of a sifting screen, 

 shown above the part marked " ash dust." The action 

 of the seat on rising mcves the lever, dotted in the 

 figure, which in its turn tilts up the ashdust re- 

 ceptacle, and, in doing so, sifts the refuse; the cinders 

 fall ofl' the inclined p';in3 into a box belov^f, marktd 



"cinders" in the figure, whll^t 

 the ash-dust, deprived of all 

 large particles, enters the recep- 

 tacle prep .red for it. At the 

 same time the tilting of the ash- 

 bos causes a fixed quantity of 

 the ash-dust to be discharged 

 into a terminal ppoon, which 

 acts as a distributor, and spreads 

 the reagent evenly over the soil. 

 The cinders may be removed 

 from time to time through a 

 side-door shown in Fig. 14, 

 whilst the soil-pail is capible of 

 Ijeing taken out in the same way. Fig. 1-t shows a compact 

 form wliic:i may with advantage be placed in a bath room 

 or up-tairs cou'partnunt : slightly modified, it forms a 

 handsome piece of furniture for a bed room or sick-room 

 commode, whilst the cost of even the most expensive form 

 is 60 low, that it could be adopted in the houses of the 

 poor. The absorbent and deodorising properties of coal 

 ash-dust, freed from cinders, are such as to place it in the 

 first r.ink of dry-closet re agents. We have subjected it to 

 severe tests, and find from our experiments that it is quite 

 efBcajious. Its admixture with the soil in the production 

 of a v,al.i.ible manure we have already referred to at length 

 in a former paper.* 



The tieat ..fuc of liquid waste by the ash-closet system 

 has been made the sulject of a new invention by Mr. J. 

 Oonyers Morrell, and he has succeeded so perfectly in this 

 that the only olistacle to the introduction of his appliance 

 in large towns has been finally overcome. The apparatus 

 was exhibited for the first time on March 2, 188.5, at the 

 Architectural and Building Trades Exhibition. It is sub- 

 sidiary to the cloet appliance, and consists of a galvani-ed 

 iron tank, in the sha|.e of a semi-cylinder on wheels, the 

 ends of which are clewed. The compartment thus formed 

 is divided by a partition, as shown in Fig. 1.5, the basal 

 moiety of which is perforated. The first chamber acts as 

 a soil-receptacle, whilst the sifted cinders fall into the 

 second division. Excess of liquid that may by accident be 

 poured into the soil-receptacle and remain unab.-orbed by 

 the ash-dust, or the bquid waste from nursery chamliers, 



passes into the cinder-containing division. All bedroom 

 and other house-slops may be poured into a basin leading to 

 the cinder trough, which thus acts as a preliminary and 

 constantly renewed filter. The liquid thence passes out 



Kxowledgf:, Dec. 20, 188-1-, pp. 523, 524. 



Fig. 15. 



^^^.;vW 



through a pipe from that trough, the proximal portiois 

 of which is detachable, and filled with a prepared granular 

 carbon ; this acts as a second and more perfect filter; and 

 the efiiuent, tolerably purified and innocuous, may thence 

 be discharged into the gully for sink-water, and thus into 

 the surface drains, or may be used for purposes of irriga- 

 tion. In the suburbs of London, and especially in country 

 towns, villages, and isolated farmsteads and mansions, the 

 cinders may be shunted into a side box, and all the licjuid 

 waste from the second receptacle pass unfiltered into pipes 

 leading to the loose drains of gardens and arable land ; the 

 immediate result of this would be an increased and rich 

 harvest. 



We have now shown, that through these modern im- 

 provements, the dry system for the disposal and utilisation 

 of household refuse has reached a stage at which ic can be 

 profitably employed, not only in country villages, but even 

 in large towns ; and it only now remains for our local 

 suburban boards to adopt the system, in order to ensure 

 the happy results of freedom from preventible disease, 

 decrease in the rates and taxes, healthy homes for the 

 poor, and the enrichment of the soil. 



THE NICARAGUA CANAL PROJECT.* 



rilHE idea of a ship canal across Nicaragua, which should 

 X. utilise both the Sau Juan and Del Medio rivers and 

 Lake Nicaragua, is over a century old. Long before the 

 formal conclusion of hostilities between Great Britain and 

 the revolted colonies which were soon to become the 

 United States, two colonels of the Briti>h army made a 

 secret survey of the routes possible, and in 1870, Captain, 

 afterwards Lord, Nelson attempted to seize the country, 

 with a view to a ship canal in the near future. During 

 the succeeding seventy years the Cabinets of Westminster 

 and Washington found in this Nicaragua project their most 

 fruitful subject for diplomatic bickering — until, in fact, the 

 Crimean War and the Mutiny on the one hand, and the 

 great conflict with the Confederate States on the other, 

 diverted English and American attention to more urgent 

 matters. Now, after the last seiious movement towards 

 constructing such a canal by private enterprise has been 



* This article from onr valued contemporary Engineering, is 

 inserted as a fitting supplement to that finished in last week's 

 Knowledge, on the Tehuantepec Ship Railway. 



