60 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
Again: “ Results worked out, and still being worked out in the ESR 
by sewage discharge, are evils of great magnitude, and seriously detract 
from the general value of the Metropolitan sewage arrangements. If certain 
foul accumulations, formed near to the old sewers at London, led the reporters 
of 1868 to declare that the evil had attained such proportions as to render 
it essential to the well-being of the Metropolis that means should be taken 
for its permanent abatement, what would they say of similar features on a 
more gigantic scale lower down the river? Observing that the present 
channel in Mid-Thames is through banks of fetid matter, that the water 
in the channel is loaded with material in a state of putrescence, and that it 
daily oscillates within the Metropolitan area, with its teeming population, 
and contaminates the atmosphere, they would probably admit this to be a 
state of things altogether detrimental to the public interest. Though it may 
be very true that the action of land-floods, and the frequent passing to and 
fro of the steam-traffic of the river, will always maintain a navigable passage 
through its foul reaches, yet the sides of the channel and the contiguous 
foreshores must, of necessity, become more foul, and to a greater distance 
from the outfalls, as the population increases and the water is more highly 
charged with the accreting matter which sewage contains.” 
Again: “ Nothing can be possibly more unsatisfactory than the present 
condition of things.” 
I may add that no effectual remedy is suggested by Captain Calver, 
though he anticipates that ‘experimental research and discovery” may 
bring about ** a successful solution of this pressing question." 
The report concludes a re-iteration of what has already been advanced, to 
the effect that the “foul and offensive accretions have recently formed in 
the channel of the Thames;” and that a ‘‘ material portion of these accu- 
mulations are in the neighbourhood of the metropolitan sewage outfalls;" 
and he recommends that the Metropolitan Board of Works be called on to 
dredge away those portions of the accreted matter which interfere with 
the convenience of navigation, and that they be requested to adopt such 
arrangements as are calculated to prevent similar accumulations in future.” 
He further hopes that the ** noble metropolitan river” may be “ freed from 
a drawback which is impairing its commerce and usefulness.” 
The report of Captain Calver is met by a lively rejoinder from Sir J. W. 
Bazalgette, C.B., Engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works, supported 
by other scientific men, in which he premises that, “ when it is considered 
that the report in question purports to be, not the exaggerated statements of 
an advocate, but the calm and deliberate conclusions of a scientific man, 
upon a matter involving the most serious and vital interests, adopted and 
PNEU 
