534 
PURIFICATION OF STABLES. 
and sheep in-door habitations in general — from those impurifications 
which the atmospheres of such confined localities sustain from the 
effluvia arising from the excretions, the dung and urine, suffered 
too long to remain in or diffused about them ; and with which the 
soil constituting the flooring, or the interstices in the pavement of 
such flooring, becomes necessarily soaked and saturated, giving rise 
to the well-known smell of the stable, the cow-house, &c. All 
that ventilation can effect is to give exit to any noxious gaseous 
matters which may float and ascend in the imprisoned air ; and as 
fast as they rise others will be found generating below to supply 
their place ; so that, in point of fact, the atmosphere may be rather 
said to be kept at a certain standard of impurification than at any 
period to be depurated or purified by any such process as ventila- 
tion. In saying this, we are not decrying ventilation ; we are 
merely shewing its insufficiency alone to answer the purpose it 
commonly is supposed to do, viz., to free the atmosphere of the 
stable of its contaminations. 
In the article to which we have in the beginning of the present 
one made allusion, we insisted — and we here repeat what we then 
stated — that the contaminator of the stable atmosphere should 
be attacked at its source ; — that measures ought to be adopted 
either to neutralize or to suppress the effluvium, the product of 
the urinary and alvine excretions. To this end, we then sub- 
mitted accounts of the alleged efficacy of certain “ deodorizing/’ 
and said to be “ disinfecting,” fluids bearing the names of their 
respective compositors — Ellerman, Burnett, and Ledoyen. We 
likewise submitted some experiments we had made ourselves with 
the sulphuric acid of commerce, the refuse sulphate of lime as 
obtained from the manufacture of acetic acid, and the nitrate of 
lead. We now suggest for the purpose mentioned, still for ex- 
periment, as another purifier, a production which has been of late, 
and is at the present moment, engaging much of the attention 
of the agricultural world, called peat charcoal. We have not, as 
yet, had any opportunity of making trial of this old-fashioned sub- 
stance in a new form ; though, we think, our readers will agree with 
us, that, from the subjoined accounts of its deodorizing, and as it 
would appear disinfecting, properties, it certainly holds out strong 
temptations for experiment. 
