344 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SECTIONS, 
that the slops and refuse liquids of the City of Melbourne are 
conveyed on the water-tables, and it is well known how objection- 
able this has proved. 
When I was stating my objections to these gratings to the Board 
of Health, I was speaking from theory ; but since the completion 
of the Adelaide system, I have been supplied with confirmation of 
hed 
my anticipation, as I received a letter from the City Council of 
Adelaide informing me that these gratings were found intolerable 
in certain localities, and inquiring of me what the practice was in 
Sydney, which seemed to visitors so effectual in suppressing smells 
from sewers. 2 
I replied, furnishing directions as to the practice I am about to 
advocate herein, which I am informed is being introduced in that 
city, probably not on account of my letter, but because the 
engineers in charge of the sewers were perfectly familiar with the 
plan themselves. 
Indeed, the gentleman who designed and carried out the work, 
Mr. Oswald Brown, was a man of European reputation, who 
found the scope for his energies in the Colonies too circumscribed 
and returned to Europe, when he had completed his work in — 
Adelaide. 
reviously stated, opinions as to the efficacy of charcoal, 
and the durability of its efficacy are somewhat conflicting; but the 
cost of applying it, and in maintaining it in a state of efficiency, is 
not a matter of doubt, and is very heavy. 
Having stated my objection to certain methods of ventilating 
sewers, it remains for me to explain the plan I would adopt by 
erence. 
With reference to the principle that frequent outlets into the 
outer air are desirable there can be no dispute, but my contention 
is that these openings should not discharge the sewer-air at the 
street surface, under our noses, so to say, but at such elevation 
above our breathing spaces that it cannot again be breathed at 
all, but be dissipated in the surrounding air. i 
The plan recommended is neither original nor new, but in my 
opinion the best of recent methods, and is simply this:— | 
__ The house drain after being connected with the sewer is laid at 
the requisite grade to a point near the house ; here is interposed & 
The sewer gas will flow up this branch until it arrives at the 
trap ; in order to get through this trap into the premises, It would 
