284 



NA TURE 



[July i8, 1907 



(i) hybrid cock X jungle hen, (2) hybrid hen x domestic 

 cock, (3) hybrid hen x jungle cock. 



From the cross-bred cock x hybrid hen several addled 

 eggs were obtained, four more had chicks dead in the 

 shell, and from two of the eggs live chickens were hatched 

 out. The latter were apparently sturdy and robust enough 

 for a short time, but died on the twelfth and eighteenth 

 day respectively after hatching. The sterility of the 

 hybrids cannot, thtrefore, be adduced as evidence that the 

 Ceylon jungle fowl is not a parent stock of the domestic 

 fowl. It was pointed out that the Ceylon jungle fowl 

 has a reddish-brown breast, and when reversion occurs 

 among domestic fowls, even those of pure bred black- 

 breasted types, the males usually have red or brown 

 breasts and not black like Gallus bankiva. 



Mr. F. V. Theobald gave an account of a parasitic liver 

 disease in fowls, specimens of which had been sent to him 

 during the last three or four years. Although (previously 

 unrecorded, it is probably quite common, and due to a 

 protozoon Amoeba maleagridis, Sm. Diagnosis is some- 

 what difficult, but the post-mortem appearances of the 

 liver with yellow spots along with swollen caeca are 

 characteristic. The life-cycle of the parasite is not yet 

 fully worked out. 



Mr. Theobald incidentally referred also to an infectious 

 disease among poultry in South America, produced by a 

 Spirochjete, which passes part of its life-cycle in a fowl 

 tick {Argas miniatus). J- P- 



HYDROLOGY IN THE UNITED STATES. 

 PURIFICATION OF SEWAGE. 



1X7 E have on several previous occasions noticed the 

 papers issued by the United States Geological 

 Department on Water Supply and Irrigation.' Recently 

 we have been favoured by the receipt of nineteen further 

 papers bearing on this subject." 



The greater part of these, although containing a great 

 deal of information bearing on water supply, are yet 

 chiefly of local interest. 



Paper No. 180 of the series now sent deals with the 

 efficiency of turbine w^ater-wheels, and consists of a 

 compilation of data derived from tests and from manu- 

 facturers' power tables of American stock sizes, and is 

 intended principally for the use of the hydrological 

 surveyors in cases where the turbine is used for gauging 

 streams. 



Paper No. 179 gives an account of investigations carried 

 on for the purpose of discovering means for preventing the 

 pollution of streams by distillery refuse. Paper No. iSq 

 further deals with the disposal of the waste liquors result- 

 ing from the manufacture of strawboard, an important 

 problem connected with the prevention of stream pollution 

 in the districts where this industry prevails. 



Paper No. 187 deals with the measurement of streams 

 when they are frozen over, and with the modifications of 

 the ordinary methods of gauging these streams when they 

 are covered with ice. 



Paper No. 182 describes the various wells in use for 

 municipal or domestic supply in Michigan, and the means 

 adopted for raising the water from these wells. 



Paper No. 185, on investigations into the purification of 



1 Water Supply and Irrigation in the United Slates, January 7, 1(504 ; 

 July 28, 1904 ; November 3, 1904 ; December 22, 1904 ; January 26, too, ; 

 December 21, 1905 ; March 2, 1906 ; May 24, 1906. 



- Reports issued by the Department of the United States Geological 

 Survey. Water Supply and Irrigation Papers. (Washington : Government 

 Printing Office, 1Q06,) No. iS^;, Purification of Boston Sewage; No. 179 

 Prevention of Stream Pollution by Distillery Refuse; No. tSo, Turbiiie 

 Water Wheel Tests and Power Tables ; No. 150, Summary of Underground 

 Water Resources of Mississippi ; No. 161, Quality of Water in the Upper 

 Ohio River Basin ; No. 162, Destructive Floods in the United States in 

 1905: No. 164, Undercround Waters of Tennessee and Kentucky; No. 172. 

 Progress of Stream Measurements, Missouri River ; No. 174. Progress of 

 Stream Measurements, Western Gulf of Mexico ; No. 171;, Progress of 

 Stream Measurements, Colorado River ; No. 177, Progress of Stream 

 Measurements, California ; No. 179, Means of Preventing Pollution of 

 Streams hv Distillery Waste ; No. iSi, Geology and Water Resources of 

 Owws Valley ; Nos. 182 and 183, Flowing Wells and Municipal Water 

 Supplies in the Southern Peninsula of Michigan ; No. 184, Underflow of 

 South Platte Valley : No. 187, Determination of Stream-flow during the 

 Frozen Season ; No. ,S8, Water Resources of the Rio Grande Valley in New 

 Meiico; No. 1S9, The Prevention of Stream Pollution by Strawboard 

 Waste. 



NO. 1968, VOL. 76] 



Boston Sewage, with a history of the sewage disposal 

 problem, is of much more general interest, and contains 

 a great deal of information of value to sanitary engineers 

 and chemists engaged in sewage disposal. It therefore 

 deserves a more e.Ktendcd notice in this Journal. 



The origin of the paper was as follows ; — An anonymous 

 friend of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 

 moved by the magnitude and gravity of the sewage dis- 

 posal problem as it concerns householders and communi- 

 ties, in igo2 presented to the institute a sum equal to 

 1000/. a year for three years, afterwards extended to five 

 years, for the purpose of making experiments on sewage 

 purification and giving the widest possible publicity to 

 means or methods by which the present too often crude 

 and imperfect systems may be improved. 



The report now under review, which contains 162 octavo 

 pages, has been drawn up by Messrs. Winslow and Phelps 

 in consonance with the wishes of the donor, and consists 

 of a popular statement of the history of the several methods 

 that have been tried for the purification of sewage, and 

 a record of the results obtained at the laboratory of the 

 Massachusetts Institute. It is claimed by the authors that 

 the paper is written in a popular style and in language so 

 simple that citizens, boartis of health, and sewerage com- 

 missions may readily avail themselves of the information 

 contained in it. 



The sewage experimental station at the institute is 

 situated adjacent to the City of Boston, U.S.A. Within 

 the last few years the whole of the sewage of this city 

 has been collected into two large main outfall sewers, and 

 is discharged into the harbour on the ebb tide. Thi- 

 station is connected with one of these outfall sewers. 

 The sewage is pumped directly from the sewer through 

 22-inch galvanised pipes into a series of twenty- 

 five tanks having an area of 24 feet each, the depths 

 varying from 3 feel to 6 feet. In these tanks the sewage 

 is treated by intermittent sand filtration ; the septic 

 process ; contact filtration through coke, stone, and brick 

 of various diameters ; and by trickling filters. The result 

 of the effluent from the different tanks, as obtained by 

 analysis, is given. 



Under the conditions of these experiments crude sewa^i 

 has been successfully filtered through a 2-feet bed of sand 

 with an elYective size of 0.14 millimetre at a rate of 

 04 million gallons per acre per day, divided into four 

 doses in the twenty-four hours. The effluents were clear, 

 bright, and well purified. 



With single contact beds of stone ij inches in diameter, 

 passed at the rate of 1-2 million gallons per acre per day, 

 the effluent of the crude sewage was only partially 

 purified. The bed.s clogged rapidly, and the surface re- 

 quired much attention. 



The double contact system in primary beds of 2-incb 

 material, and secondary beds of | inch, yielded a fairly 

 well-purified and stable effluent at the rate, on the com- 

 bined double system, of about 0-7 million gallons per acre 

 per day with beds 6 feet deep. 



The most practical of the methods that have been studied 

 appears to be the treatment of the sewage either sedi- 

 mented or subjected to a very short period of septic action 

 in double contact beds. 



The process of trickling filtration remains to be con- 

 sidered in a further report, but, so far as the present 

 experiments indicate, this method will probably prove 

 superior to any so far tested. 



In the report is also given a summary of the history of 

 sewage purification in England, Germany, the United 

 States, and other countries, and the gradual development 

 of the processes at present in operation. Starting from 

 the discharge of the crude sewage into the sea or rivers, 

 broad irrigation or sewage farming is described, and also 

 chemical precipitation, intermittent filtration through sand, 

 septic tanks, contact process in beds of coarse material, 

 and continuous trickling over coarse material. 



With regard to the first, it is shown that, although 

 where the conditions are favourable sewage may be dis- 

 charged into the sea without creating a nuisance, there 

 yet remains to be considered its effect on shell-fish. With 

 regard to the discharge into rivers, the conclusion arrived 

 at by the River Pollution Commission of 1874 is given 

 that sewage mixed with twenty times its volume of pure 



i 



