90 YEAR-BOOK OF FACTS. 



As for mere sulphuretted hydrogen, Mr. Spencer, like others, has 

 failed to obtain any really serious, or noxious, or even simply ob- 

 noxious, quantity from the Thames water, or even from the Loudon 

 sewage ; and he is quite convinced that the summer stench does not 

 arise from mere sulphuretted hydrogen, but mainly from sulphuretted 

 carbon : other chemists differ. 



The importance of Mr. Spencer's conclusions, if correct, is obvious, 

 and so is their novelty. If he be right in these conclusions, a new 

 way opens up for the sweetening of the Thames. The immediate re- 

 moval of the black mud would be but the initiative : gas companies 

 would require to be compelled, by legislative enactment, to rejoint 

 their pipes, or otherwise abate their nuisance ; and not only Mr. 

 Spencer, but gas engineers whom he has consulted, can see no diffi- 

 culty, such as may be alleged to be peculiar to London streets, in 

 the matter : the thing has already been done in other populous and 

 busy towns ; why should it not be done in London '* The saving of 

 gas would repay the cost. Only think of 6,000,000 cubic feet of gas 

 adding, every year, with sulphate of lime ad libitum, to the accumu- 

 lative nuisance of the ill-smelling black earth of the street subsoil 

 beneath our feet, even though its connexion with the cognate black 

 mud of the Thames banks could be disproved. 



However feasible the result of Mr. Spencer's interesting and im- 

 portant investigations may appear, there is one apparent objection 

 to the idea that it is the black mud alone whence the summer stench 

 issues which we must reiterate. If it were so, why is it that the 

 stench subsides as the black mud becomes exposed to the sun at low 

 water, and increases as this mud becomes covered by the rising tide? 

 We do not mean to say that an ingenious and skilful chemist like 

 Mr. Spencer may not be able easily to explain away such an objec- 

 tion ; but, at all events, it requires explanation ere his final result 

 can be full}' admitted, even though he has extracted the stench (or 

 at least the abominable sulphuretted carbon) from this very mud by 

 an artificial summer's heat, and has even simulated the whole process, 

 ab initio, in his laboratory. — Abridged from the Builder, Xo. 903.* 



* Dr. M r William, of Her Majesty's Customs, hns inquired into the effects of 

 Hie river miasms, and has olearly shown thai they have not yet produced the 

 mischief which was anticipated of them. Happily lor us, there is evidently 

 some condition wanted to make "this filthy river oapable of generating eholera, 

 or of forming a soil lit for the germination of the seeds of that disorder when 

 introduced into it." There is great uncertainty in the proposed plan lor d 

 rising the river by means of perchloride of iron. Dr. Xetheby has ascertained 

 tlirii the perchloride is highly oharged with a compound of arsenio, whioh is ex- 

 ceedingly poisonous, a sample of the liquid burnished to him by the patentee. 



Mr, Dales, mh< I described bj bun as the same us that used in tli tperimentaj 



inquiries for the Board of Works, has yielded from l';h; to 897 grains of chloride: 

 of arsenic per gallon, [f, therefore, the sewage of London were deodorised in 

 thewaj | ould be discharged daily into the Thames as much as 



227 pounds of chloride of arsenic This would I quivalent to the casting into 



the river ab ■ : I rt. of powdered arsenio doily. It is true that the poison 

 would be diluted with ii large quantity of water and with many millions of 

 gallons of sewage, but a knowledge of tins fact would afford no relief to our 

 apprehension of danger, or to the anxiety whioh must be fell lest the aeoumu* 

 lnt fd effect > of the poison might in the course of » very short time be dangerous 

 in the extreme. — Dr. Lethcby'i Quarterly Btpoti to the Commiteioncrt qfSetcert. 



