498 Correspondence. (August, 
the extra cost, at the lower figure, will be £328,500 yearly, — a 
heavy outlay for an injudicious measure. I call it injudicious 
because chloride of lime, though it may for the moment suppress 
or mask the evil odour of the sewage, will not remove from it 
the putrescent or putrescible matters, and unless this is done I 
need scarcely say that there can be no true and permanent puri- 
fication. 
Further, chloride of lime in rivers is itself a nuisance. It and 
its kindred compounds were specially noted in the “ Recom- 
mendations ” of the late Royal Rivers Pollution Commission as 
to be excluded, or at least kept within very narrow limits, 
amongst other grounds because it is fatal to fish. Disputes be- 
tween riparian proprietors and the owners of paper-mills on this 
very subjedt are not infrequent. It is again to be remarked that 
chloride of lime and carbolic acid are mutually incompatible. 
Yet we see now the sanitary officials of the vestries pouring car- 
bolic acid down public urinals, &c., whilst the Metropolitan Board 
of Works uses the conflicting ingredient at the outfalls, the rate- 
payers, of course, finding the funds for this unscientific pro- 
cedure. 
Argus. 
TECHNICAL TRIALS. 
I have not at present time to reply in full to the acute letter of 
“ Nomikos.” Much of it, however, relates to matter which lies 
outside both your cognizance and mine. A Homoeopath de- 
fendant qua Homoeopath is too rare a phenomenon to be taken 
into account. I am not aware of any scientific man who objedts 
to Patent Laws as such. The persons who would do away with 
patent-right are lawyers, merchants, bankers, and the like. 
Should even some day a distinguished ' chemist or physicist, 
“ without faith in the Patent Laws,” turn up, it is scarcely likely 
that his objedtion to a system would interfere with his judgment 
as to the novelty or the feasibility of a process. There are 
scores of matters' which might possibly form the subjedt of legal 
proceedings on which text-books are dumb. 
In the cases of technical language which “ Nomikos” brings 
forward there are synonyms intelligible to the public ; but in 
many cases the technical term is the only one in existence for 
an objedt or a process, so the difficulty of explaining its meaning 
to outsiders is not small at any time, and is greatly increased by 
the system of examination and cross-examination. 
An Old Technologist. 
