NATURALISTS SOCIETY. 
From the Bristol Daily Post of April 10th, 1&65. 
The last ordinary meeting for this session took place on 
Thursday evening last, April 6th, at the Philosophical 
Institution. There was a fair attendance of members, and 
the president, Mr. W. Sanders, F.R.S., occupied the chair. 
At the conclusion of the routine business, Mr. Leipner 
reminded the members of the desirability of taking advan- 
tage of the ensuing summer months for the collection and 
registration of objects of Natural History for the forth- 
coming publication of the Society, and stated that the 
authorities of the Institution would be happy to receive and 
attend to any specimens confided to them for that purpose. 
Mr, W. W. Stoddart exhibited a Polysiphonia, which he 
had found in abundance in a walk in the bed of the Severn, 
between the piers of the South Wales Union Kailway, during 
a very low tide. 
Mr. Alfred Noble, F.C.S,, then read a paper on the 
" Utilisation of Sewage." After some introductory remarks 
upon the importance of the subject, the source of excreta, 
and their most valuable constituents, the author stated that 
the great desideratum was to combine the purely sanitary 
and the utilitarian lines of investigation in such a way that 
they should not be opposed to each other. In consequence 
of the injurious and offensive emanations caused by the 
oxidation of some of the elements of excreta, the first aim 
of sanitary reformers had been to remove them as quickly as 
possible from the vicinity of dwellings, and hence arose the 
water-carriage system, successful at first, but which, 
gradually converting rivers into gigantic cesspools, repeated 
eventually on a large scale the very evils sought to be 
removed by it. Various schemes had then been proposed, 
which might be classed under two heads ;— firstly, those 
which precipitated the solid matter from tbe sewage, and let 
the clear liquor run into the rivers ; secondly, those which 
advised the pumping of tfee whole sewage over the land. 
'I'he precipitation scheme failed, because the most valuable 
constituents of the sewage were soluble in water, but the ir- 
rigation scheme was juit now attracting most notice. Mr. 
Noble then read several extracts from a letter addressed to 
the Lord Mayor of London on January 19th, 1865, by Baren 
Liebig, the eminent German chemist, according to whom 
London sewage contained daily 17 tons potash, 15 tons 
phosphoric acid, 75 tons ammonia, mixed with 750,000 
ions of water, together worth £5691. This could be used 
for irrigation, because the earth abstracted all the valuable 
ingredients (just as wool or silk abstracted the colouring 
matter in a dye-bath), but it could only be conveniently 
applied to grass land. After some further statistics of cost, 
&c., Mr. Noble then spoke of the successful application of 
irrigation at the Craigentennx'^ Meadows, near Edinburgh, 
and contrasted with them the Maplin Saiids, which were to 
be used by the Metropolitan Board of Works, but which, 
containing no clay, and scarcely anything but sand, would 
be much more difficult to fertilise. In the opinion of the author 
too much faith bad been placed in the water-carriage system, 
and his paper stateo that dry earth, such as garden mould, 
mixed with the excreta, entirely prevented the evolution of 
. anv noxious tflliuvia, somewhat resembling charcoal in this 
respect. The process was first proposed by the Rev. Mr. 
Moule, of Dorchester, aiid had been successfully tried in 
many places. The whole of the fertilising matter was pre- 
served, and the resulting product, which was entirely with- 
out smell, could be applied to crops when and where needed 
— it being possible to use the same earth several times 
in succession by keeping it dry— and thus a manure of £7 
per ton in value could be obtained. Mr. Noble then de- 
scribed the details of various plans proposed for the appli- 
