1866.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 227 



upon the mere quantity of night-soil discharged into it. Even if there 

 be 180 tons a day, 10,000 times that amount of water does not seem 

 an improbably excessive discharge for such a river as the Hooghly. 



" I do not see that any other argument of Dr. Smith's is by any 

 means conclusive. There is no a priori improbability in the water 

 being bad and not fit for human consumption, even though it contain 

 no more than 1-4 grains of organic matter per gallon. The mi- 

 healthiness of the water is one question to be decided by evidence, 

 that of the number of grains of organic matter per gallon is quite an 

 independent question, which can best be decided by means similar to 

 those adopted by Dr. Waldie." 



Babu Rajendralala Mitra said that he did not wish to take a part 

 in the discussion as regards the merits of the different analyses of the 

 Hooghly water by Drs. Macnamara and Waldie, but he could not 

 help observing that the line of argument adopted to impeach Dr. 

 Waldie's analyses was not a fair one. The great disparity between 

 the results of the two learned chemists was certainly startling, and 

 suggested the necessity of further enquiry ; but .that enquiry should 

 be conducted solely and exclusively through carefully conducted 

 rigid analysis, and not by d priori arguments which proved nothing. 

 No doubt the sewers of the town discharged a large amount of filth 

 into the river, and there were other sources of contamination equally 

 or more potent ; but the river was not a closed vessel, and the law of 

 proportion could not apply to it in any way. Mr. Blanford had very 

 correctly pointed out (the Babu said) that, notwithstanding the oscil- 

 lation caused by the tides, the river discharged an enormous volume 

 of water every minute into the sea, and as long as the relation it bore 

 to the total quantity of filth daily thrown into the river was not 

 ascertained, the rule of proportion suggested by Dr. Smith could only 

 serve to mislead. Then a large quantity of filth was being constantly 

 changed by exposure to the atmosphere, and the pure oxygen contained 

 in the water, and its ratio had to be ascertained. Then again the 

 fishes, the molluscs, the Crustacea, and the infusoria — the myriad mil- 

 lions of animals — which inhabit the river, live and fatten mainly on 

 the sewerage of the town, and as long as the quantity consumed by them 

 was not ascertained, one most important element in the calculation 

 would remain undetermined. The fact, however, was that rivers were 



