Bnowx.— Drainage of Towns. 261 
Mr. Ward, the Registrar-General, and inquired if any information as to the 
influences of the drainage discharges was shown by the health statistics. 
He informed me that owing to the situation of the wards from which the 
mortality tables are compiled, no comparison in the way enquired about 
could be established. 
** Mr. Ward, however, introduced me to Professor Pell, of the Sydney 
University , who is chairman of a Board appointed in 1875 to enquire into 
and report upon the best means of disposing of the sewage of the city of 
Sydney and its suburbs, as well as of protecting the health of the inhabit- 
ants thereof; and such information as I have obtained from the reports of 
the Board now before me I will endeavour to review under the following 
different principal heads. 
“ Effects of Discharge of Sewage into Harbour. 
“ The evils occasioned are two. 
“1. The contamination of the shores and harbour. 
* 9, The silting up of the harbour. 
** The substances it is: desired to dispose of otherwise are as follows :— 
(1.) The light contaminating matters, partly in suspension and partly in 
solution, whieh create the nuisance. 
** (2.) The fine sand, comminuted clay, and other purely divided earthy 
matters, which are at all times bronght down by the sewage water, and in 
large quantities during heavy rains. This matter is carried over every 
part of the harbour, and even far out into the ocean, and slowly settles to 
the bottom. 
* (8.) The coarser sand brought down in times of flood, a part of which 
is deposited at the bottoms of the sewers, generally near their mouths, and a 
portion at or about the outfalls, forming in some cases sand-banks which 
become polluted by the offensive organie matter. 
« The committee reports show how great the evil is of discharging it 
either on a foreshore or spreading it abroad on the surface of the water. 
« An extract from the report of the committee for the investigation of 
crowded areas and dwellings, shews, that the committee found thejodour at 
the bottom of Liverpool street at midnight was so offensive, at low tide, that 
they could not have credited it, without personal experience of it, and that 
no description yet published equalled the foul reality. 
« Mr. Moriarty, Engineer-in-chief for Harbours and Rivers, in his 
evidence before the Board, states that the nuisance from the sewage floating 
on the surface of the salt water is frightful, and that offensive mud-banks 
are formed, and as a matter of fact we hear that the outlets of the sewers 
are invariably offensive, and that the reason, why the harbours and rivers 
become polluted with animal and organic matter, is that this matter is 
