49 



potent argument with which anglers should support an 

 agitation to insist upon our streams and waterways being 

 brought back to that state of pristine purity, when they 

 would be 



u Deep yet clear ; though gentle yet not dull, 

 Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full ? " 



Now to the remedies. 



The town authorities thought they had made an excel- 

 lent case when they only asserted, without contradiction, 

 that there were no known means of purifying the sewage, 

 and that consequently the pollution of rivers was a neces- 

 sity, and, as a matter of course, the hackneyed proverb 

 jingled on their tongues. 



Science then stepped in, and she has put natural forces 

 in action, that lay ready to do her bidding. First she 

 suggested that mother earth should be called in as a 

 purifier, and at once sewage farms began to spring up in 

 various parts of the country, where it was possible to 

 obtain land of a suitable quality (a very important con- 

 sideration) for a sewage-farm. But many towns " rushed 

 in where angels fear to tread," and are now bitterly repent- 

 ing their haste, in taking land entirely unsuited from its 

 composition to thoroughly defecate the sewage. Others 

 have taken land suitable in itself, but much too limited in 

 extent, on account of the great cost of suburban property. 

 Others are in this difficulty, that they cannot increase the 

 area of their operations except at a ruinous cost. The 

 great difficulty is in procuring land suitable for a sewage 

 farm. You must have land that would be called a dry 

 friable clay soil ; this means generally that it is high-lying, 

 valuable for agricultural purposes, and therefore expen- 



VOL. VII. c. E 



