652 Transactions of the American Institute. 



There is no doubt but that in the last twenty-five years industrial 

 enterprises of all kinds have made most rapid progress in Germany ; 

 but previous to this period all communities followed the beaten track 

 of their ancestors, and the great improvements that sprang up in 

 America and England, during the second quarter of this century, 

 were looked upon as inapplicable to the Teutonic requirements, and 

 he who presumed to advocate the introduction of such improvements 

 was looked upon either as an enthusiast or a disturber of society. 

 The consequence has been that the introduction of both gas and 

 water in the German towns and cities has progressed very slow. 

 Even at the present day there are cities in Germany containing over 

 100,000 inhabitants that have no regular water supply further than 

 that afforded by the wells of the city. One result of this want of 

 water has been the absence of a proper vehicle to carry away the 

 solid matter that must inevitably enter the sewers, as much of this 

 solid matter is composed of organic substance, which, from its slug- 

 gish motions through the sewers, becomes decomposed before its 

 exit from them ; the result is a constant evolution of disagreeable 

 and noxious gas within the sewers, which must and does escape 

 through every aperture connecting with the atmosphere. 



Even New York, with her abundance of water, is familiar with 

 this sewer gas, for there is scarcely a sink or a water-closet or an 

 inlet to a sewer where this gas does not make itself manifest to our 

 olfactory organs. Judge, then, of the extent to which these disagree- 

 able odors prevail in some of the European cities which are not pro- 

 vided with water for carrying away the filth that enters their sewers. 



The bad state to which the water in the wells of the continental 

 cities was being reduced, and the want of a supply of water from 

 external sources, have led to a great many trials and expedients to 

 mitigate the evil effects produced by the accumulation of fecal mat- 

 ter. In some places the earth had become perfectly saturated with 

 corrupt and putrefied organic matter, and the exhalation from it was 

 producing disease and pestilence, and it became manifest to the most 

 obstinate that some means must be adopted to prevent a further pollu- 

 tion of the earth and water. In some cities it was decided that all cess- 

 pools should be so constructed that the fluid matter could not pass 

 through their walls. Had it been possible to accomplish this end, we 

 might, with some reason, have expected that the water in the vicinity 

 would have gradually improved. It was found, however, that the best 

 walls, even when double cemented, were not impervious to the chemical 

 action of the mass that they were intended to confine ; that the cement 



