JLbt. VI. — Remarks on the Dry Earth System of Conservancy, by 

 Edward Bedford, Esq. F.R.G.S. 



[Read 2nd December 1868.] 

 It is several months since a commission sat to enquire into the 

 effects of pouring the sewage of the city into the harbour. The 

 immediate cause of the enquiry was the mechanical disturbance, 

 by the filling up of parts of the harbour by the deposits brought 

 down by the sewers ; other questions rose in this enquiry. 



It is not my intention to go into the question examined by 

 that commission, nor to enquire if any other system than the 

 drainage by water is safer to the health, or otherwise more useful 

 and economical / but to draw the attention of the members of this 

 society, and of the public, to a very important question affecting 

 the suburbs of Sydney, where drainage is not established. 



The suburbs of Sydney are only partly supplied with water by 

 pipe service, and in the absence of such service no sewerage by 

 means of water can be carried out, and these suburbs, therefore, 

 are not relieved of sewage, and the drinking water is supplied from 

 wells. It is understood that polluted soil may be made the means 

 of deteriorating the health of the people in its vicinity, and if 

 that polluted soil is studded with the wells, disease may also be 

 conveyed with the water from these wells. 



It is a general opinion that the poisons of cholera and typhoid 

 fever are conveyed by water from the excreta of patients suffering 

 from these diseases. 



Ground pierced by cesspools must pass into the surrounding 

 ground their fluid contents, and if this ground is also pierced 

 with wells, the wells will, as a rule, be of greater depth than the 

 cesspools, and the wells will then form not only the store house 

 for the drinking water, but also for the drainage from the adjoin- 

 ing cesspools ; and the water from these wells may become the 

 source of some particular form of disease, as well as being the 

 the cause of a general impairment of health. Also from the open 

 mouths of these cesspools, gasses arising from the decomposition 

 of their contents constantly pass into the air. 



It is well known that a system of dry earth conservancy has 

 been for some years carried out in different localities, and parti- 

 cularly in public establishments in India. 



That the system can be worked, I am quite sure, not only from 

 the reports I have read from India on this subject, and the notices 



