Drainage for Melbourne. 59 



duct the operations. In such a case, I apprehend that our 

 own trade would derive a stimulus from the supply of our 

 own requirements. We need not send one penny out of the 

 country, except for the first machinery, workmen, and 

 patterns. The second point is the employment of competent 

 superintendents and laborers in the drainage itself. It is 

 probable, that as respects everything but the laying and effi- 

 cient junction of the pipes, the work would be such as any 

 skilled engineer would be competent to conduct ; but in the 

 detailed manipulation it appears to me that a few foremen 

 would be indispensable. They would know what we have yet 

 to learn. I therefore beg to suggest that it would be advi- 

 sable for the presiding authorities to open a communication 

 with the London Board of Health on this point. It might 

 further be judicious to supply that body with maps and con- 

 tour levels of the district, as well as with such other particu- 

 lars as would enable them to assist us with practical sugges- 

 tions on the great work we have to carry out. The last point 

 is the process of deodorization, and on this I have purposely 

 kept silence, feeling that our principal object should be first 

 to get rid of the sewage, letting the turning it to useful pur- 

 pose be an after consideration, and fearing that its discussion 

 might detract attention from what I consider the main 

 question. 



Viewed simply as a question of chemical science, there 

 cannot be a doubt but that the most foul and foetid sewage 

 can be deodorized, but it is equally certain that, commer- 

 cially, it has been a decided failure. 



In proof of this I would beg leave to cite two authorities : 

 The first, a writer in a late number of the Times, who makes 

 the assertion that the reducing of sewage of towns to a solid, 

 so as to be easy of carriage and useful as a manure, has never 

 yet been profitably done. He further states that recent ex- 

 periments tried on newly ploughed land, by allowing the liquid 

 sewage to flow freely over it, have verified two facts : — 

 1st. That land receives more benefit from the manure in the 

 liquid than in the solid form ; and 2nd. — That fallow land, 

 particularly if of a loamy or sandy character, is the best and 

 cheapest deodorizing agent known. 



The second authority I shall cite is Professor Dugald 

 Campbell, who says, in a Report on the application of Sewage 

 to Agriculture, laid before the Chemical Society — " That ma- 

 nure had been prepared from sewage by simple filtration, but 

 with an extremely imperfect removal of fertilizing matter ; 



